Whole Grain Baking - Sue Gregg Cookbooks

Introducing Yeast Breads
The wonderful world of whole grain baking is not complete
without an introduction to yeast breads. The combination of a variety
of whole grain quick breads and yeast breads adds tremendous
nutritional and creative value to family meals. Yeast bread baking is
more involved and complex than baking quick breads. Most homemakers
shy away from it. Nevertheless, yeast breads fill a niche in our
diet that quick breads, tasty as they are, fail to completely satisfy. Not
only do they provide contrast in taste and texture, but they are suited
to all meals and snacks. In comparison, most sweetened quick breads
are more suitable for breakfast menus, snacks, brunch or desserts.
A Russian experience will serve to illustrate. During my first classes
for Russian women, I prepared a quick bread such as muffins to serve
with a main dish. While dining on the main dish, I expected the women
to eat the muffins as an accompaniment. Instead, they wanted to save
the muffins for dessert with tea, and while dining on the main dish
asked, "Isn't there any bread?" In Russia, a meal is not a meal without
bread, and that means yeast bread.
Yeast bread has been loved by virtually all peoples for millennia,
while most quick breads are more recent. Homebaked yeast breads
are worthy of our attention since most commercial yeast breads,
including whole grain, fail to measure up nutritionally. Likewise, the
delectable taste and texture of homebaked yeast breads is hard to
match com-mercially. People who are served a slice of homebaked
yeast bread feel like they are getting the royal treatment.
There is always more to be learned about whole grain baking and
especially about making yeast breads. For years I made the first basic
yeast bread recipe that came with my electric bread kneader with
success every time. I have happily used my Bosch Universal Kitchen
Machine for thirty years (not an autobake machine). I followed the
easiest guidelines for producing this recipe almost effortlessly, doing
a variety of variations with the same dough: loaves, dinner rolls,
variations of cinnamon rolls, date pecan ring, pizza crust, parmesan
herb bread, hamburger and hot dog buns. I used hard winter red
wheat exclusively until I was introduced to spelt, Kamut ® grain, hard
white wheat and hard red spring wheat. I continued to have consistent
success substituting these grains in the same recipe with slight
variations in flour quantity.
The original recipe, Delicious Whole Grain Dough, p. 144 still
remains my basic recipe, although now incorporating changes based
on current nutritional understanding concerning the issue of phytates.
119