Economical Wheaten Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the bran water
Boil the coarse bran in more than 4 gallons of water until smooth.
Pour 3 gallons and 3 quarts of the clear bran water into a mixing bowl.
Make and shape the dough
Add 56 pounds of brown flour, salt, and yeast to the bran water.
Knead the mixture until a dough forms.
Shape the dough into loaves and let them rise.
Bake
Bake the loaves in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 hours.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Coarse bran
- Adds fiber and bulk, giving the bread its coarse, hearty texture.
- Brown flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and holds the loaves together.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise before baking.
The step that matters
Boiling the coarse bran until smooth. Boiling softens the bran and hydrates its fibers so they break down into a smooth liquid. Unsoftened bran would cut through the gluten network and weaken the dough's structure.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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