I spent a few hours this past week grinding and filling up the containers in my pantry of all of my favorite whole grains. For those who are not used to cooking with whole grain flour, this is my number one tip to making cooking easier. You need to make all of your go-to baking ingredients easily accessible in your pantry. If you only store wheat in your basement or in your food storage room you will never use it. Learn to grind your grains into flour and store them in large containers in your pantry. Having a variety of different whole grains that have been ground into flour in your kitchen will make using them much easier. This way you can throw a few cups of these grains quickly into pancakes, muffins, breads, etc.
Some of my favorite grains to grind into flour and store in my pantry are wheat, oats/groats, rye, and brown rice (I even keep ground white bean flour in my pantry too). These four grains are easy to substitute in the place of white flour and add nutrition to your everyday cooking that you couldn’t get otherwise.
Try this delicious Multigrain Bread that takes our favorite Whole Wheat recipe and changes it up with a few different grains. It is still soft, flavorful and amazing–especially with our homemade honey butter. Enjoy!
Multigrain Bread
Makes 4 8/4 inch loaves
5 c. whole wheat flour (grind your own if you have a wheat grinder)
1 c. oat flour
1 c. brown rice flour
2/3 c. vital wheat gluten
2 1/2 T. instant yeast
5 c. hot water (120-130 F)
2 T. salt
2/3 c. oil
2/3 c. honey or 1 c. sugar (I like honey the best!)
2 1/2 T. bottled lemon juice
3 c. rye flour
2 c. white flour (or more wheat/rye)
Mix together the first five ingredients in your mixer with a dough hook. Add water all at once and mix for 1 minute; cover and let rest for 10 minutes (this is called sponging). Add salt, oil, honey or sugar, and lemon juice and beat for 1 minute. Add last cups of flour, 1 cup at a time, beating between each cup. Beat for about 6-10 minutes until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This makes very soft dough.
Pre-heat oven for 1 minute to lukewarm and turn off. Turn dough onto oiled counter top; divide, shape into loaves place in oiled bread pans. Let rise in warm oven for 10-15 minutes until dough reaches top of pan. Do not remove bread from oven; turn oven to 350 F and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from pans and cool on racks. This recipe can be halved to make 2 loaves.
