How to Make Your Own Delicious and Healthy Bread

After lots of experimenting I arrived at this recipe, which is now the only bread we've been eating in our home for several weeks. My 5 year old loves it (she even eats the crust!) and my wife loves it too. It's also super easy to make. The only caveat is that it takes about three hours in total, so you have to plan a bit ahead. Most of that time it's just waiting, so no worries. If you start early in the evening you can go to bed in a house that smells like a delicious bakery and have fresh bread in the morning.

Step 1: The Ingredients

This recipe will yield two breads. Because these breads are high in fibre, a three person family can live on those for about 2 or 3 days, depending of course on the amount of bread one uses per day. There are absolutely no conservatives in this recipe, so I recommend freezing the bread if you think they're going to be around for more than 3 days.

750 grams (3.2 cups) organic whole wheat flour
250 grams (1.1 cups) organic rye flour
15 grams (1 tablespoon) dried instant yeast
60 grams (4 tablespoons) sugar
5 grams (t teaspoon) salt
600 ml (20.3 US oz) lukewarm water

Step 2: What You Need

This organic bread is hand-kneaded! That is a delightful way to relax and zone out, and it makes you appreciate the result even more. That being said, you will need a few things to create these wonderful breads:

two bread tins or similar. I use the silicon ones (see picture) which are superb. Nothing sticks to them.
a large bowl
a piece of cloth to cover the bowl with
an oven

Let's get started!

Step 3: Make a Soft Dough

Combine all the ingredients in the bowl and start kneading. Keep deforming and plucking the dough for at least 10 minutes. This is the hardest part of the whole recipe and it's actually quite fun. Your hands will get crazy dirty, but who cares when you're making your own bread, right? The dough should have the consistency of something like bubble gum. If it's too dry, the resulting bread will be disappointingly hard. You can add a bit of water if you think it's too dry.

Now leave the dough in the bowl and cover it with a piece of cloth. A tea towel will do just fine. Leave the dough alone for at least an hour. So many things you can do in an hour.

Step 4: Remove the Air From the Dough

After an hour (no sooner!), the dough will have almost doubled in size. If this didn't happen, you probably killed the yeast. Anyways, lets hope for the best and you're staring at this doubled amount of dough. Punch out all the air. You heard that right, remove the air from the dough. Get all those frustrations out of your system. Now we're talking.

Step 5: The Bread Takes Shape

Separate the dough into two equal portions and roll those into bread like forms that you can deposit into the bread tins (or silicon thingies as I'm using here).

Cover again with a piece of cloth and leave the whole contraption alone for, yes, again, a whole hour. Whatever you were doing in the previous hour of waiting for your dough can now be continued. Enjoy it.

Step 6: Baking Time

After yet another hour, the dough will again have risen substantially. Be careful not to deform the breads, as now they are ready for baking. I use an electric oven at 175 degrees Celsius (i.e. 350 Fahrenheit). Both breads can sit next to each other in their bread tins in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes. Under no circumstance should you cover the breads while they are in the oven.

Step 7: Golden Brown Texture Like Sun

After 45 minutes your two breads are finished. They should have a golden brown texture. Now they need to cool off. I let them rest all in the open for a few minutes. Then I pack my breads into the same tea towel so they can breathe out excessive moist.

Next morning: fresh delicious bread! Enjoy!

TIP: you can vary the ingredients to taste. Try multiple grain flour instead of wheat flour. I use very little salt in this recipe, so if it's not appeasing your taste buds, you might consider adding a little more salt.