Every Sunday, I make a loaf of whole wheat bread in the bread machine. My Significant Other and I use this bread in the lunches that we take to work. I've been doing this since about August 2006, when I finally developed the perfect loaf of sandwich bread.

I've got it down to a fine art. I've got the ingredients memorized and it takes me about 25 minutes, which includes clean up.

I always wash the measuring cups and spoons I use, by hand rather than putting them in the dish washer, because I might want to use them again that day for something else. (Lately, I've been making cookie bars!) I know that using the dish washer is more environmental, but washing by hand, I catch the grey water and give it to my poor garden. The soapy water discourages bugs and the plants need extra water, so it works out environmentally, anyway!

It's been a long time since I've eaten store bread. At the beginning, I wasn't always faithful about making loaves. It only happened a couple times, tho. You get used to homemade bread. And then you can actually taste the chemicals they put in store bread. And, trust me, it's gross. Yuck!

The bread machine takes 3h 18mins to do it's thing, and then I've got a beautiful hot loaf of wheat bread! I dump it out of the machine and let it cool down. Then I cut it in half and put each half into a ziplock bag. Both halves go into the freezer.

When we're ready for new bread, I pull out a half-loaf. I've found that it's much easier to cut the bread into slices when it's still frozen. It's a little too soft at room temperature. I cut eight slices, not including the two heel pieces which sometimes get a little thin. So, we can have four sandwiches out of the half-loaf. Which lasts two days, between SO and I.

At that rate, I occasionally have to make two loaves of bread in a weekend. Which is a little bit tedious, even tho it's less than 30 minutes of work. eh. It's okay because making bread makes me feel self-sufficient and healthy and vegan.

Perfect Static8 Sandwich Wheat Bread

1½ cup Whole Wheat Flour
1+ cup soy milk
2 or 3 tablespoons Oil

Nuke soy milk for 45sec and pour into the bread machine container with the wheat flour and oil. Soaking the wheat while you mix the other ingredients means you can use the "white bread" setting on the machine instead of the "wheat bread".

1¼ cup Unbleached Flour
¼ cup Wheat Gluten
3 or 4 tablespoons Sugar
¾ teaspoon Salt
1½ teaspoon Corn Starch
1½ teaspoon Yeast

Dump those ingredients into the machine and set it for a 1.5 pound loaf of white bread! Make sure it makes a good bread ball, I sometimes have to add some water because it's too dry. This makes a fairly sweet loaf of wheat, dense enough to slice for sandwiches without falling apart.

Tag: vegan

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 10 June 2007 Entry