Advent Day 1

Each year I enjoy the online advents done by some blogging/online journaling friends of mine. They post one item each day along a theme of their choice. They are so fun to read and just thoroughly enjoyable. (Unfortunately for you, they are not public, so I can't link you to them.) This year, one of them invited all her e-friends to participate as well. I decided to give it a try! It was hard to narrow my choices down to one theme. The top two contenders were knitting and baking/cooking/bread/etc. LOL I decided on the latter, but since baking/cooking/bread/etc. is too long of a theme, I've decided to go with "Recipes" as my advent theme. I'll post a recipe every day until Christmas. :c)

I missed yesterday, so I'm going to post Day 1 right now and will post Day 2 later today(tonight?). *Hopefully* the recipe I'm tweaking right now will pay off. If not, I'll pick another recipe until I can figure this one out. (Hint: it involves ginger!)

The first recipe isn't a new one and I might have posted it here before, but it's the one I use most often -- my whole wheat bread! I promise to not just post recipes I've posted before. ;c) I figured this one *had* to be a part of my advent, though. It's such a staple in our house. I got the recipe from a friend a few years ago and had added the flax seed to it, but it's essentially the same recipe.


Whole Wheat Bread -- makes 4-5 loaves
5 cups hot water (as hot as your faucet gets, which should be about 115*F)
7 cups whole wheat flour(I use a home-ground mix of red and white wheat berries)
1 cup gluten flour (I use Hodgson Mill Natural White)
2.5 tablespoons yeast
2 tablespoon dough enhancer or gluten(*This is optional, but it does improve the loft and crumb.)
1/3-1/2 cup ground flax seed

Mix above ingredients in order for about 2 minutes, then add...

2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice (or orange, lime, any citrus)
2/3 cup oil (extra virgin olive oil or whatever you like)
2/3 cup honey

Mix, then add between 5-7 cups of whole wheat flour(not the all-purpose). Add enough flour until it scrapes the bowl clean, but no more! (Usually for me it's around 5.5 cups. This will vary depending on the weather. On more humid days you will use more flour.)

Knead for 15 minutes. (You may have to do this by hand if your mixer doesn't like all the whole wheat. I make this in my Bosch mixer, so I can let it knead away with no work from me.)

Shape into 4-5 loaves and place in greased loaf pans.(The number I make varies depending on the weight of the dough and/or how lazy I am feeling. I weigh out each loaf to make them all the same size. :cP If I don't feel like weighing them, I just chop the dough in 4ths.)

Cover and let rise until double, which is slightly over the edge of the pan. (This takes about 20-30 minutes, if you've used room temperature ingredients, longer if the ingredients were chilled.)

Bake at 350*F for about 30-35 minutes or until internal temperature is 190-200*F.

Cool on wire rack, if you can wait that long!

Now, cross your fingers that I can post each day *and* come up with 25 recipes that aren't copyrighted. ;c) I'll give it my best shot!