Adventures in wheat bread making...

I've baked. I'm not great at baking, but I'm not new to it, either. I've made white bread, wheat bread, rolls, breadsticks, cornbread, focaccia bread, banana bread (see two posts below...), cookies, muffins, scones, brownies, cakes, et cetera. Most of the time, things turn out okay (don't see two posts below), but I want to get better so that I can make something spectacular. Something so good, it doesn't have time to cool before it's devoured. Something that people remember and ask for ("Oh, I hope Jeralyn makes her delicious <insert delicious food for which I am known, here>!"). Commence wheat bread experiments.

The other day, I ground up a little bit of wheat and made my first attempt (in a long time) at a delicious loaf of wheat bread:

(Overhead view necessary since loaf did not raise above edge of pan.)

Surprisingly enough, this loaf was rather tasty. The dough did not rise. At all. I think my water was way too hot and destroyed the yeast (yes, I used yeast). I let it try to rise for hours, and even punched it (it hardly made a dent, but it helped relieve my frustration at the dough ;) ), but it remained dense and heavy. So I cooked it. We ate it. I learned.

A couple of days later, I found some new recipes and wanted to try again:

(Overhead view not necessary since loaf is about a hundred times taller than the last one.)

(This loaf turned out so pretty, it deserves another picture.)

Okay. Big difference. I got the water the right temperature this time. I let the dough rise over a warm oven. It actually doubled! Success! It rose (raised?) even more the second time, and even more in the oven. The top was a little dark, but it was light and fluffy. It tasted alright, but Loaf Attempt #1 actually tasted better. This one is great with a little butter and honey, though!

So now I need a little break from wheat bread making. I think next time I will return to my first recipe and be more careful with the water temperature, and I may just have something. If it turns out, watch for me to bring some to your door one day :)