Don’t try to bake a whole wheat yeast bread without a breadmaker. Make Bittman bread instead.
I learned this lesson last weekend as I tried to knead my very hard dough. It was painful and I sweated a lot (and had to wear high-heeled clogs so I would be tall enough to knead my bread at my kitchen counter). Today, I made a bread from a recipe published in the New York Times by Mark Bittman. It was much easier and tastier. I made a slight alteration to the recipe by not using corn meal and increasing the wheat flour content. The quickbread is delicious!
Bittman Bread
Ingredients:
PAM for greasing breadpan
2 cups buttermilk ($0.99 at Giant supermarket)
3 cups of whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup molasses
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 deg F. Grease loaf pan with PAM.
2. Mix together dry ingredients (flour, salt, soda). Stir molasses into buttermilk. Add liquid ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to combine (just until flour is not powdery on bottom of bowl–has a very dry consistency). Pour into baking pan.
3. Bake for 45 minutes (until toothpick comes out clean). Cool on rack for 15 minutes. Then enjoy (I had raspberry jam with mine!)