A Year of Bread-Part 2

For February, the kids made whole wheat bread. This is a post about the machine we use as much as the bread they made. My mom bought a BOSCH mixer when I was in High School. She bought a mill and we made our own bread with flour we'd milled. For a short time I even made bread to sell to people at church.

In college, I worked for a few summers at our church's camp as the food service director. I planned meals and with the help of 5 Jr. High girls, we cooked meals for the 100+ campers that came each week. At the end of my last summer there I asked the directors if I could buy the BOSH mixer that they had tucked away in the back of the closet. (We never needed to use it at camp because we had a professional Hobart mixer that was much bigger.) They gave it to me as a bonus!

So this is the machine that we use to this day to make our bread. I have no idea how old it is. It's got to be at least 25 years old. (This is my exact model!)It's older than my mom's model! But the thing churns out 4 loaves worth of bread at a time in 15 minutes flat. If you are considering making your family's bread I would highly recommend the BOSCH mixer. Even though it costs quite a lot new, I've seen several newer than mine on ebay for a fraction of the cost. And I can testify that they last for ever! My friend Cara is the only one I know that has actually worn hers out. You can read a funny story about it here. But she used it more frequently, and for lots of other things other than bread. Plus hers was even older than mine!

I have been using ours off and on since we were married. So the kids have helped numerous times with the baking. But this time they got to do it all by themselves and I just watched. They loved it!

For you BOSCH owners here's the recipe we used.

Whole Wheat Bread

Preheat oven to 200 degrees
In the BOSCH bowl combine:
7-8 cups whole wheat flour, (I use King Arthur's White Whole Wheat)
5 1/2 cups hot tap water
2 Tablespoons salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup gluten

then add and mix until incorporated:
2 Tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon yeast

Turn the machine to 1 and add a cup of flour at a time. When your machine starts making a different noise, switch to 2. Keep adding flour until the dough clings together like a ball and scrapes the sides of the bowl.

Turn your machine back to 1 and mix for 10 minutes to knead the dough.
Meanwhile grease your pans. Sometimes we make 4 loaves of regular bread. But many times we'll make one of them a cinnamon swirl bread by rolling out the dough and sprinkling with cinnamon sugar, then rolling it back up to put in the pan. Other times we'll make dinner rolls, or pizza, or cinnamon rolls.


Put your loaves (or whatever) in the oven and turn it off. Leave in for 45 minutes. Turn on your oven to 350 degrees and bake for 35-40 minutes. Enjoy!