Wheat Bread from Say Yes to Hoboken

I usually mess up bread recipes, but this one actually worked and was so yummy.


Mema's whole wheat bread
Nothing tastes better on a cold winter day than warm homemade bread right out of the oven with a cup of soup. Growing up, my mother ran her bread making machine into the ground pumping out delicious loaves of bread every afternoon when we came home from school. I remember coming home frigid from winter track and looking forward to a warm piece of homemade bread right out of the breadmaker with butter and jam. She started with wheat bread (and actually ground her own wheat in the basement!), but complained about the breadmaker not kneeding it properly, switched to white bread, and then back to wheat with the whole 'carb' craze which eventually killed the machine. Now I don't have a breadmaker, yet, but I do have a new kitchenaid mixer which makes this famous recipe of my grandmother's, Mema, that much easier. I've become addicted to it the same way my mother was. I've started making it on a regular basis ( every other week ). So delicious, so healthy, so simple and so much better than the store bought version it's ridiculous.I made some last night. It literally took about 15 minutes. I let them rise while I went for a run, and then we had warm homemade bread for dinner to eat with our stew.This recipe makes two loaves. Gobble one up warm and then freeze the other right after it cools for delicious sandwiches and breakfast toast for months.Mema's whole wheat bread2 1/2 cups hot water from tap5 cups whole wheat flour1 cup white flour1/3 cup canola oil1/4 honey2 T molasses1 envelope yeast1 T salt1 1/2 cup extra wheat flourTurn oven on warm. Grease 2 bread pans. Mix 4 cups wheat flour and white flour with yeast in a big bowl. Add hot water to kitchenaid mixer along with honey, oil, molasses and salt. Mix until dissolved. Add flour/yeast combo little by little (might want to put on the dough hook at this point). Add extra flour a little at a time while it kneeds. Let it kneed for about 10 minutes, stopping periodically to scrap the sides of the bowl. Divide dough in half, mold them into loaf shapes and place in bread pans. Place in warm oven, then turn oven off once they are in and let rise for an hour or two (in thiscold week I left the oven on warm while they rose).Cook for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.