Ha Ha! Success! Buckwheat Bran Bread

Hello everyone! You may know the story of how bad I am at making yeast bread. That yeasty beast has been tangling with me for some time. I've had a break through I think. I made a more than edible, actually tasty loaf of hearty whole wheat bread. Check it out!

This bread contained a lot of fun ingredients such as buckwheat flour, whole buckwheat (kasha), bran flakes, milled flax seed, whole wheat flour, etc. Those ingredients gave the bread a distinct earthy, nutty flavor WITHOUT tasting like dirt. I'm so happy!
This was a very sticky stage. I decided to hand knead this bread - a test to see if hand kneading gets better results than a stand mixer. I tossed on quite a bit more flour. No need to get crazy messy.
Lookin' good right before the first rise. This dough is very easy to work with and has a nice color.
The second rise: it rose just like the recipe said it would, and while it was uncovered, too. The mysteries of bread! I'll never get over it.
I will never bake bread again without this thermometer. It really does take all of the guess work out. No more tapping on the bottom of the loaf. No more poking it with a fork. Thank you, thermometer, thank you.
I didn't burn it! A great success! A slathering of butter gave it this nice shine.
And it has an even crumb as well! I attribute that to hand kneading. I don't doubt that a stand mixer can do the job, I just haven't figured out how to do it. Besides, a little muscle work never hurt.
Ahhh, delicious! It tastes slightly nutty like a whole wheat bread should. I love how the little kashas give a little crunch. I am very pleased! This will be a bread to make again. Maybe next time I'll throw in some herbs, spices, or nuts. Oh, the possibilities!

Adapted from The Book of Bread by Judith & Evan Jones

• 1 Tbsp. active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/2 cup bran flakes
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/4 cup milled flax seed
• 1/4 cup kasha (whole buckwheat)
• 1/4 cup of honey
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 -2 1/2 cups white flour

In a large bowl dissolve the yeast and honey in warm water. Stir in the bran, buckwheat flour, oil, salt, flax seed, kasha, and about 1 cup each of the whole wheat flour and the white flour. Stir together - should be quite stiff.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface to rest while you clean and grease your large bowl.

Knead the dough, adding more of the whole wheat and white flour as necessary. Knead for about 10 minutes. Put the dough into the greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise and double in bulk for about an hour and a half to 2 hours.

Turn the dough out and punch down. Form into a loaf and place in a greased 8 inch bread pan. Leave it uncovered and let it rise for exactly 35 minutes.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for about 50 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 190. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

Makes 1 loaf, and can easily be doubled!

Sad Mood? Have some sweet bread!

Cinnamon Raisin Bread to be exact. I found the recipe on AllRecipes.com. I needed an easy, sweet yeast bread to cheer up my family. Sweet, chewy comfort food with a beginner's level of difficulty. (You have seen my previous attempts at yeast bread. Sigh.) I feel like I've improved a bit, but I've still got a loooong way to go before I'm satisfied with my yeast bread-making skill level.

Here's the dough after the first rise. With this batch, I let it rise in the fridge for a day for the first rise, then over night after I shaped it for the second.

This beast was quite some work to roll out. The recipe makes three loaves. I made 6 mini loaves, but it still required a lot of muscle. The dough is very hearty. (And I'm always wondering if I put in too much flour. With every dough I've made, I always added more flour because the dough was too sticky.) Sigh, again. BUT! Cinnamon and sugar make anything delicious.

The giant loaf of sweetness. Reminds me of a sea cucumber. I was going to put a link on "sea cucumber", but they are not appetizing animals. I'll let you research that one for yourselves.

I cut the loaf into six equal pieces. The recipe suggests that you ball up the ends so that the cinnamon lines don't show.

I wanted to see what happens, so I only closed up half. I like the cinnamon lines.

Here are the tasty mini loaves after a night of resting in the fridge. I now see why they said to close up the ends. The moisture inside the pan, under the cellophane wrap, causes some of the cinnamon sugar to run out of the roll. Sadness.

Two things: my balling/tying the ends didn't hold at all, and I had an issue with baking consistency. Also, I do not suggest baking them in a casserole dish like I did. The bottoms didn't get cooked, so I flipped them upside down to bake, whilst the tops still continued to cook...

...Ta-da! My usual burn on the top yeast bread. Will someone tell me how you bake the bread evenly? PLEASE!

For what it's worth, the non-burnt parts were very tasty. The bread had a nice "tooth-feel", good chew, and didn't flake/fall apart. Hooray! One problem solved at a time, one at a time. I hope I haven't discouraged you from baking this bread. Please give it a try. If yours turns out better, hit me up with your tips. Happy baking!