Prairie Gold Whole Wheat Bread

 

Why this noisy video?  My mother has been experimenting with Wheat Montana Prairie Gold Whole Wheat and needed to see what the dough looked like when it has the right amount of flour; and that, my friend, depends on the weather.

For the past few years I've been extolling the virtues of baking with Wheat Montana's Prairie Gold Whole Wheat.  Why so specific you wonder?  My dad says he no longer wants to use pancake mix only make pancakes from scratch using this wheat.  I agree.

The story goes like this:  I have had children at home for many years and the challenge of feeding them until they are satisfied is something I've needed to accomplish repeatedly.  Oh, I should mention I also have a trim husband with a fast metabolism.  This is why I needed to become a decent cook of reasonably healthy food that filled them up for more than 30 minutes.

I was raised on Wonder Bread and liked it just fine at the time.  As children, my siblings and I turned up our noses at "brown bread." on the rare occasion some well intentioned family friend offered it.

Early on in our marriage I had the idea using food in its most natural state is best.  If our creator had wanted us to have bread with white flour he would have made it that way in the first place was the thought that kept coming to me.  This of course has many possible arguments but I'm just revealing the progression of my thoughts.

Well humph!  YOU just try making whole wheat waffles, pancakes, cookies, bread, rolls etc and passing it off on YOUR young family.  It was a no go; too heavy and dense.  So to make it palatable I mixed it to varying degrees with white flour.  This went on for years with varying degrees of complaint from the children and silent endurance from the spouse.

Then one wondrous day my sister who was traveling I-90 through Montana to visit us stopped at Wheat Montana and picked up bread and pastries for our enjoyment.  Now THAT was mighty fine AND it was whole wheat.  "I have some experimenting to do," said I.

It so happened that my husband's relatives once owned the land in Montana near Three Forks where the Wheat Montana products come from.  As a teenager he had helped farm that land and knew of the severe weather conditions/stress which produce the higher protein grain Montana is known for.

Well, it is a full day's drive from here to Wheat Montana but once a year or so we travel through there to visit my sister.  Each time we stopped for a break at Wheat Montana and looked over their products.  We usually came away with bread and pastries; all wonderfully edible even by the children.  On one such trip, I noticed you could buy bags of grain.  I asked the cashier for advice about lighter baked goods vs heavier baked goods and she suggested we try the Prairie Gold for the lighter outcome. We bought a 25 pound bag of Prairie Gold grain to grind ourselves.

Sitting way up high and unused on my pantry shelf was a Magic Mill wheat grinder.  This grinder along with my Bosch mixer had been a much appreciated wedding gift from my folks.  While the Bosch Mixer was used regularly, the Magic Mill had been used once.  It was so loud when we ran the thing it had to be outside with us inside.

Now with anticipation of lighter, fluffier whole wheat products, I climbed up and got it down, unwrapped it and ground some wheat; loud noise and all.  The first thing I made was waffles with 100% whole wheat.  This was not announced to anyone.  I just waited to see what they would say.  When they ate it without complaining I tried it again and again.  It was quite awhile before they knew they were eating waffles with 100% whole wheat.  They are so funny.  They had to make goofy comments about how they knew all along.  But I know they didn't.

Also in this same time frame I discovered Demarle at Home products so sometimes instead of using the waffle iron we just use a tray in the oven:

This time it was the teddy bear mold.  I have to make a lot of extras if I want them left over for breakfast on the run.  But I digress.

About 5 months ago my parents and other siblings were traveling through Montana on the way to visit the other relatives and I put in my request for them to bring back four 25 pound bags of Prairie Gold.  I specified the 25 pound bags because even though the 50 pound bags are more economical, I can't lift them.  Now some of the other relatives are trying it out and it hasn't gone so well.  I think the problem might be the recipe but I'm not sure, so here is what is currently working for me.

Whole Wheat Rolls

1 Tablespoon yeast  mixed with

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

4 ¼ cups fresh ground Prairie Gold Whole Wheat from Wheat Montana

3 Tablespoons raw honey

½ cup oil

Mix yeast and warm water together.  Let sit while you place the other ingredients in the Bosch mixing bowl.  Then add the yeast/water and mix for 30 seconds.  Look at it and make sure it is not too dry or too wet (see video)  Add water or flour in tablespoon increments until it is just right.  Then knead 9 minutes on lower setting.

Let rise for an hour in a place that is not too hot like I have done a time or two. Stir down and divide into muffin sections.  Let rise until doubled.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Makes 30 deep heart rolls.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day so I'm using the deep heart tray to make today's rolls.

  
Filled the heart shapes less than half full with dough.

In the photo above they raised to a little more than double in about 40 minutes.  Maybe because the lower oven is turned on and I put them in the cozy upper oven to raise.  They would usually take longer to raise without that perfect environment.

The finished, light, fluffy heart shaped dinner rolls.  Yum!  We ate several of them right up with butter only before they were cold.

After school one of the kiddos was making her sack lunch for tomorrow and informed me we needed to go to the store and buy sandwich bread.  I wasn't in the mood for that so showed her how to make two small sandwiches from one roll.  At first she was not excited about it until I told her she could take the photos and that changed everything :)

She took the next photo.

         Happy Valentine's Day