Honey Wheat Bread

Karen over at Notes From the Cookie Jar has renamed her recipe section Chasing Tomatoes to chronicle her new year long focus on eating less processed food and eating more local food.  Reading all her posts have made me think more about what we eat.  I figured I should give bread making another try…this time with whole wheat four.

Honey Wheat Bread
Adapted from this recipe from allrecipes.com

3 cups warm water
2 packages dry active yeast
1/3 cup agave nectar
5 cups whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp butter, melted
1/3 cup agave nectar
1 Tbsp salt
2 – 6 cups additional whole wheat flour

Mix warm water, yeast, agave nectar and 5 cups whole wheat flour in a large bowl.  Let sit for 30 minutes or until it has “grown” and is bubbly.

Mix in melted butter, additional agave and salt.  Add 2 cups whole wheat flour and mix well.  Turn onto a floured surface and knead additional whole wheat flour in to the dough until it is no longer sticky.  This can take an additional 2 to 4 additional cups flour depending on humidity, etc.

Spray a large bowl with cooking spray.  Put dough in and turn once to coat with oil.  Place in a warm place (like your oven with the oven light on but the oven off) to rise until the dough doubles in size.

Punch down and form into 3 loaves.  Place in prepared pans and let rise again until dough is 1 inch above top lip of pan.

Preaheat oven to 350 degrees and bake loaves for 25 to 30 minutes.  The bread should sound hollow when you tap on the top of the loaf.  Remove loaves from pan and cool on cooling racks.

Recipe Notes: This bread turned out really well if a bit sweet.  Next time I make this I will cut back on the agave nectar.  I may try to cut back to just 1/3 of a cup total.  Otherwise I wouldn’t change a thing.  I don’t have 3 loaf pans so I made 2 loaves and a pan of rolls.

This is linked to What’s Cooking Wednesday over at Tales From the Fairy Blogmother!