Multi-Grain Bread

Here is a wonderful bread recipe I got recently from my dad.  Even my kids like it.  :)  Since it is marching band and soccer and cross-country season, those are the photos I have recently. 

Dad's Multi-Grain Bread


Preparation:  Boil these for ten minutes - until the water is in the softened seeds.


1/3 cup millet
1/3 cup quinoa 
1-1/3 cup water
(You, of course, noticed the ratio of seeds to water is 1:2)


Sometimes I put in 1/3 cup wheat and another 2/3 cup of water.  Wheat takes twice as long to cook as the other seeds, so I put in all 2 cups of water and boil the wheat for ten minutes and then just add the other seeds.  (I do not remember if I used the wheat in the bread I gave you.)


Set these aside and cool—you do not want to kill the yeast.


The bread itself:


6 cups water
4 Tablespoons yeast
2 Tablespoons salt ~ this is what gives the bread it's flavor, not enough means no flavor, too much is not good either.  I kind of heap the spoons, but it is way less than three spoons.
1 cup oil.  This seems to be one of the places where there is room for variation.  I have used margarine, olive oil and canola oil and can't taste the difference.  The stuff I gave you was canola.
1/3 cup honey.  I have some old five gallon (plastic) buckets of honey I bought from a friend dirt cheap it is wild flower honey and dark with almost molasses taste. (He was a bee keeper and could not sell the wild stuff for nearly as much, but that is what is available in the Texas winter time and the bees keep busy.)  The Pepperidge farm bread has molasses.  I have made it without the honey and I think the biggest difference is the time it takes to rise, it also makes you use a little more flour because honey is a moist ingredient.  I have used molasses instead of honey and it is good.


1/3 to 1/2 cup flax seed.  When you go to Winco to get the seeds, get the cheapest flax seeds.  Some are about twice the cost of the others, the nutrition is the same and with the bread you will not be able to tell the difference.  The benefit is the Omega 3 oils in the seeds.
13 to 14 cups of whole wheat flour.
I put the yeast, salt, oil and water in the bowl with the seeds first.  


Add all but the last cup or two of flour.  It is easy to add more as you need it.  This is something you will learn with the first batch or two.  But you want to add enough flour to be able to knead the dough and not have it stick to your hands.  That comes as you work the gluten molecules - kneading makes them stick together to become a much larger elastic-like polymer.  Not enough flour and the bread falls like a cake when you pull it out of the oven.  Too much flour makes the dough stiff, hard to work and it comes out dry.  It is hard to tell exactly how much flour in a recipe because it varies with the moisture content of the flour itself.  We have more moisture in the air than you do, so I would need a little more than you need.  (I hope that makes sense.)  


After you have kneaded the dough with not enough flour, add more until you can knead it and it comes away from the bowl and your hands easily.  Whole wheat flour does absorb a little moisture as it rises.  (Basic white flour without the wheat germ and husks does not do this.)


All told, I knead it for about 10 or 15 minutes.  (It is easy, I think of Obama, and work out all of my frustrations with a vigorous thumping.)  The total time commitment is about 20 - 25 minutes from start to letting it rise.  (Not counting the seed preparation, but that can be done a day or two in advance.)  


Set the dough aside and let it double in size.  I put it in the oven and just turn the light on to bring the temperature up to a little over room temperature because I am impatient.  Experts will all tell you the bread is better if you let it rise in a cooler place, but I have tried it and can't tell the difference.  


After the dough has doubled, punch it down and divide it into bread pans.  This gives five loaves.  Four of them will be the size I brought you, one a little smaller.  If you leave out the seeds, use less flour and you will get four loaves.  I spray the pans with generic oil spray.  When I get the dough in the pan, I turn it over, it leaves the stuff with a light coat of oil on the top and still enough to oil the pan.  That way it both comes out of the pan and does not dry as it raises to loaf shape.  One of the things I do is take the dough for a loaf and turn the edges down with my fingers until I have a surface that looks like it could be a smooth loaf, that is the stuff that goes into the bottom of the pan first.  When I have put it in the pan, I take it out, turn it over, and put the surface that has had the edges tucked into it on the bottom.  It gives a loaf that looks a little better.


Once the bread is in the pans, Let it rise again.  


Cook at 425 degrees for 30 - 35 minutes.  Because I let the bread rise in the oven, I just turn the oven on and let the cooking start as the oven comes to temperature.  I leave it in for 38 minutes.  


When the bread is done, I cool it on a wire rack.  Jannet does not like a harder crust, so I take a stick of margarine and rub it on the top of the loaves so the crust softens.  I probably use about 2 tablespoons of a stick on my five loaves.  I take it out of the pans within a few minutes of pulling it out of the oven so it does not sweat and give soggy crust.  You will not be able to slice the bread as soon as it comes out.  Let it cool a little first.


Good Luck!     
Love, Dad Hatch

p.s. and this just in from Tyler via Facebook:

"hahaha, i took the buffalo Wild Wings challenge, 12 wings, 

6 minutes to eat them, and no food, drink, or finger licking

I did it in 5 minutes 8 seconds"

by Stephanie, wife of Barbara's son Brandon