After my first successful try with breads, I gathered the guts to try a real Whole Wheat Bread with minimal APF(All Purpose Flour)! I took inspiration from a recent post of Sanjeeta’s LiteBite. This one is a whole wheat bread with dryfruits! I felt it was a little less moist and more dense as compared to my garlic bread. Reason may be higher proportion of whole wheat flour. I should add some more water/milk next time I guess and give it some more time to rise as compared to the one with 50-50 APF and whole wheat flour.

The Bread tasted quite good! Grilled with some jam or butter would really be a wholesome breakfast or a filling evening tea snack!

Made one loaf for this week and will try some other the next week (smiles)! Bread baking will be my weekly adventure now on, I am addicted to it!

Ingredients

For Dough

• 2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/2 cup All Purpose Flour(maida)
• 1 tea spoon dry active Yeast + 1/4 Cup luke warm water (micro for 10 sec)
• 2 tea spoon Sugar (you can add some more sugar if you like it sweet, brown sugar or jaggery sugar would be even better)
• 1 tea spoon salt
• 1 Cup luke warm Milk
• 2 tea spoon vegetable oil
• 4-5 drops of Vanilla Essense(for flavour)

For Flavour

• 7-8 Dates (soaked in water for 3-4 hours)
• 7-8 PItted Prunes
• 1/2 Cup chopped Walnuts

(you can add any dry fruit of your choice like rasins, dry berries etc)

For Basting (applying a coat of liquid at the bread surface to retain moisture and to add a glaze to the crust)

• 2 Table spoon milk(room temperature)
• 2 Table spoon Olive Oil

Preparation Steps

If we divide on the basis of time, the entire bread baking can be divided into primarily  5 slots,

Yeast proofing – 20 minutes

1st rise – 1 hour 15 minutes (give this bread some more time til the time it rises to double its size. It is more of whole wheat so may take some extra time to rise)

2nd rise – 30 minutes

Baking – 30 minutes

Cooling time – 1 hour

1. Take 1/4 cup water and microwave it for 10 seconds. The water should be just luke warm. Sprinkle yeast over it and keep it inside a pre-heated microwave for 20 minutes. After 10 minutes, check if the yeast is rising and bubbling. If not, throw away this water and try again. If the yeast doesn’t rise properly, bread will not come up properly. If the yeast is bubbling, just stir your finger in the solution and let it sit for another 10 minutes.
2. In the mean time keep the flour ready. Make a well like hole and add the yeast water, sugar, salt and oil. Mix with light hands. Add milk, knead and make a rough dough ball.
3. On a floured surface, stretch and beat this dough for 10 minutes. When you stretch, a mesh like structure should be visible in the dough.
4. Once through, make a smooth ball of the dough. Grease the dough with Olive oil and place inside a big greased container to rise. Cover the container with a wet cloth.The container should be big enough as the dough would rise more than double its original size.
5. To provide consistent temperature, place the container inside a microwave.
6. After 1 hour 15 minutes(or till the time dough becomes double its size), take out the dough bowl from microwave. Punch it from the center and fold the sides inside.
7. On the floured surface, use your knuckles to release the extra air from the dough. Use light hand movement.
8. Roll the dough into a circle and spread chopped dry fruits. Close from side and form cylinder shaped dough.Spread the dry fruits on dough surface and press them a little.
9. Place it inside the greased baking tin. I used a 9*4.5*2.5 inch rectangular baking tin, however a smaller size would easily do for this quantity.
10. Grease the surface of dough. Cover it with a wet cloth.
11. Let it rise for 30 minutes inside the microwave.
12. After 30 minutes, pre heat the microwave at 180 degrees C.
13. Sprinkle some sesame seeds on the dough to add flavour and look.
14. Bake for 30 mins at 180 degrees C.
15. Mix 2 table spoon milk Milk and Olive oil in a bowl. After 15 minutes, spread some milk-oil solution on the surface of bread.
16. Place the bread tin back in microwave and now place a small bowl of water inside microwave to retain the moisture in bread.
17. Let the bread bake for another 15 minutes. If baked properly, bread should sound hollow when you tap it at the back.
18. Take it out from microwave and let it cool for 1 hour.

Eat as-is or grill it. You may also add some butter,jam or honey!

This bread is not as sweet as a cake. It is whole wheat and makes a very healthy option for a filling breakfast or a tea time partner!

Tips:

• The flour for bread should always be on wet side. When we keep kneading it for 10 minutes, it automatically soaks water.
• In case, you do not like very dense bread, increase the proportion of APF(all purpose flour) or add some glutin while kneading the dough.

This bread goes as my contribution to YeastSpotting.