Reader Recipes - Bread

I tried a new bread recipe this morning so I would have something to post about.

The bread turned out good. It is dense and small, as you can see, but really tasty.

I have no idea where I got the recipe this morning. I basically just grabbed the first recipe off Google (jotted it down on a scrap 1st grade spelling list) that I could find that only made two loaves. So I can't source it. Luckily, I changed it a little, so it won't be total copyright infringement. Right?

I am curious for someone else to make it and see if theirs is as dense as mine. You know, because lately every time I make any bread it is dense.

This recipe is a multi grain bread with a lot of flavor and TONS of texture. I don't think I would make it for a regular bread recipe (every-day bread for sandwiches and such) unless I could figure out how to get it to be fluffier. But the taste is excellent.

We'll call it...hmmmm...

Easy Multi-Grain Bread

2 C. 10-grain cereal (I used some multi-grain hot cereal mix I had in my pantry. I think it was Hodgson Mills brand)
2 C. whole wheat flour
1 C. white flour (I used white whole wheat)
1/2 C. old fashioned oats
2 TBSP flax seed (optional)
1 1/2 heaping TBSP yeast
1/2 TBSP salt
2 TBSP dough enhancer
2 TBSP gluten
1/4 C. honey
1/4 C. coconut oil
1/2 C. applesauce (all I had was cinnamon apple sauce, so my bread smells and tastes just a little cinnamony - yum)
1 1/2 to 2 C. hot water

Mix dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients. Mix well. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky. Form two loaves. Sprinkle with oatmeal or other grain (I skipped this step just because I was in a hurry). Place in greased pans. Cover with a towel and let raise for 25 minutes. Then Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Now, someone out there, please share with me the bread recipe of my dreams. Cause I am seriously considering giving up on homemade and buying my bread from Great Harvest!

The Staff of Life

We never had store-bought bread growing up. One of my earliest memories is sitting on the kitchen linoleum with my little brother while my mom mixed the dough in her Bosch. We would hum along to the sound of the mixer, and repeat made-up phrases that we thought the motor was "saying." Recently my brother and I reminisced about this particular memory, and I realized why I associate feelings of warmth and peace with the smell of home-baked bread.

To this day, there is little else that brings about the strong feelings of home and goodness that making my own bread does.

Not to mention the fact that, at long last, I really do prefer the taste of homemade to store-bought.

(A fact that gives me hope that, although they don't appreciate it now, someday my own children will long for the wholesome goodness of made-from-scratch bread)

Anyway, I am currently having a bread-making crisis. The recipe - my mom's recipe - that I have been making for a few years now, is not working for me any more. As in, it literally will not work. As in, it is dense and flat and weird (and it gets soggy after the first day). I have tried changing temperatures, changing yeasts, changing amounts of every ingredient under the sun. It just won't work. It is baffling. Especially when my mom brings me one of her loaves, and it is perfect (pictured). What is wrong with me (/my oven/my ingredients/all of the above)?!

Which is why our Friday Reader Recipe theme is going to be:

BREAD.

Whole wheat is preferable, of course. As is low sugar content. And easy. PLEASE easy!

Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, a recipe that makes 3 loaves, maximum...now I'm just getting nit-picky.

I really need to find a good go-to recipe, so I am counting on all of you.

Don't let me down.