I'm pretty sure that at some time in the past I've shared this bread recipe. I don't bother with tabs so I can't just go back and find out easily. There are times that bit of making blogging easier isn't so much, but since I really don't want to keep tabs on my previous posts (pardon the pun) I'll just repost it.
I found this recipe on a package of whole wheat flour and kept it. I didn't make it for years but last year when I really wanted to stop spending my grocery money on bread and make my own I tried it. This bread is wonderful! It's delicious and good for just about any sandwich. It's also easy to make. Unless I time something wrong (or forget I need to refill my flour containers until after I turn on the oven) the bread is usually in the pans and waiting for the oven to preheat. So I can have bread cooling on the counter in an hour.
4 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
1 quart buttermilk (I reconstitute powdered milk and use vinegar to sour it...one of the few things I'll use powdered milk for)
4 tsp baking soda
2 bread pans, greased
Preheat oven to 375F. In a large mixing bowl, mix first 4 ingredients. In a separate bowl mix baking soda and buttermilk. Stir wet ingredients into dry. Pour into pans and smooth tops. (This is very important if you don't want these strange things growing up out of the loaves, falling over, and sticking to your rack. Trust me.) Place in center of oven and turn oven down to 350. Bake approximately 50 minutes. Mine is done in 50 but ovens vary so figure out what works best for yours. When it's done, turn it out to cool on a wire rack.
For the past year I've been trying to eat more traditional, whole foods. I still do shop at supermarkets and supercenters but within those I've found many good things. I would love to try raw milk and grass-fed beef, but it's just not in the budget. We're trying to get Baba home so I'm being frugal. Lots more to do on that front, but we're doing well. I'm really enjoying it. LOL
However, for this recipe and for any baking that requires a fair amount of milk I choose to use powdered skim milk. It's very economical. We drink whole milk and I use it for baking/cooking where smaller amounts are called for (not quite worth the trouble of mixing up smaller amounts unless I'm almost out and don't want an emergency trip to the store). Especially if I'm going to be sour-ing it.
The other day I made this bread and a batch of hamburger buns. The buns were delicious but about the size of large biscuits. I also got more out of the recipe than it said to expect so I think I need to not roll it out as thin. I think I misjudged the 1/2 inch thickness. LOL They were good though and pleasantly smaller than the burgers, which was a nice change. I'm not crazy about a big wad of bun left over after I finish my burger.
I don't have the recipe in front of me to share but if you have a copy of Not Just Beans you'll find it there. In fact this is one of the cookbooks I took overseas with me and it gave me some great help in cooking from scratch. I still had to figure out how much fresh to replace canned with, but that was fine. At least it wasn't full of recipes calling for lots of processed, boxed items. Blech!
I hope you enjoy the bread. I think you'll be hooked. I know I'm a lot more likely to keep us in fresh bread with this recipe than with bread calling for yeast and rising. I can save those recipes for things I don't make as often, especially if they're large enough to freeze between times.
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