Laurel's Learning Loaf

This is my first ever homemade loaf of whole wheat bread!

I don't know why, but I've always thought of home baked bread as something difficult. (Perhaps it was that ONE TIME my mom made French bread in the 70's and complained about it being hard as a rock for like the next 20 years.) Anyway, the alchemy of flour, water and yeast has always seemed mysterious and challenging to me.

I've ventured in a few times but with white bread and with marginal success.

We eat only real whole wheat bread and that is the kind of bread I wanted to learn to make-a chewy substantial bread. I found an excellent resource, The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, a guide to Whole Grain Baking. I made Laurel's Learning Loaf, the very first recipe. It was good, not great (well it was actually great toasted with butter!) There are some fabulous looking recipes in this book (such that I may need to look for this second hand-This book was from the library) but I'm going to perfect the learning loaf before I move on.

The best part about it is that the loaf 100% whole wheat (most recipes have a mix of white and wheat flours) No preservatives, no non-pronounceable additives and it was much cheaper than the whole wheat I usually buy. (Although this is one of those things that I do for the pleasure of it, rather than the cost savings that result.)