100% Whole Wheat Bread

So, I decided that I should make some whole wheat bread today. I found a recipe, started putting together a few things, and then realized that it was not 100% whole wheat flour, some of it was white bread flour. What I decided to do then, might go down in the history books; I decided to skip the recipe, and try to make something that tastes great and is made from 100% whole wheat flour just by mixing a few things together. Would it work?

It certainly looks pretty good, perhaps a little "rustic". I tried a new method for shaping the bread. I rolled it into a rectangle and then rolled that tightly into a cylinder keeping the dough as tight as possible. It left this strange pattern on the outside of the bread, which I think is kind-of cool, but it also left this...

a nice hole in the middle of the loaf. Now, the hole isn't that big, but it's still there, I think I'll stick with my previous method of just forming it by pulling the dough tight and to the bottom of the loaf.

Although, that really didn't matter. The taste of this bread was delicious and it was my first loaf of whole wheat bread that actually turned out to have a fairly soft crust. In the past, I have brush bread with oil prior to baking and had a pan of water in the oven., because I thought that was suppose to soften the crust. Neither seemed to never really seemed to help. I did a little research and found that brushing the loaf with water prior to baking could help it be softer as well as brushing it with a little butter as it is mostly water. I also baked the bread with a pan of boiling water in the oven. That seemed to do the trick!

It tasted wonderful; it was slightly sweet, very moist, and most importantly soft.  Also note, it looks a little 'gummy' in the center, but that only because in our house a fresh loaf of bread doesn't have a chance to cool at all before being cut into!

Ingredients

1 c. warm milk

1/2 c. warm water

2 Tbs melted butter

3 Tbs honey

1 Tbs canola oil

3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 t. salt

1 1/2 Tbs gluten

2 1/4 t. yeast

Directions

1. Put all ingredients in bread machine in order listed.  Run bread machine on "dough" cycle.
2. Form dough into loaf shape and gently place into loaf pan.  Gently press so that the dough touches all 4 sides.
3. Cover dough with plastic wrap and set in warm oven until it almost doubles in size, about 45 minutes.
4. When dough is almost ready, take it out of the oven and set it on the stove.  Turn the oven on to 350 degrees to preheat and place a second loaf pan on the bottom rack.  Bring a couple of cups of water up to boiling on the stove or in the microwave.
5. When oven has preheated, remove plastic wrap from bread, brush with water and place the pan in the oven.  Immediately pour boiling water into the empty loaf pan and close the oven.
6. Bake until instant read thermometer inserted at an angle from the short end just above the pan rim into the center of loaf reads 195, about 45 minutes.  If desired, dot with a tablespoon of butter halfway through cooking.  Remove bread from pan and place on wire rack until it reaches room temp or if you live in my house, slice immediately and serve hot with dinner.
7. Enjoy!