Mrs. Cogito Makes: Whole Wheat Bread

This weekend I received an Oster 2 lb. Expressbake Breadmaker and let me just say it has been one of the most exciting gifts I have ever been given. As a self-proclaimed Certified Bread Lover™, I am always unreasonably giddy over the idea of fresh-baked bread and this weekend was no exception. The minute I got home from an exciting adventure in my hometown, I set up the breadmaker and got to work.

Setup for the breadmaker is fairly straight forward. The lid flips open to reveal a removable baking pan with a small, flag-shaped mixing blade in the center. You take the pan out and fill it with ingredients then snap it back into place when you're ready to cook. There are essentially only three main buttons to worry about: Select, Crust Color, and Start/Stop. Depending on which type of bread you intend to make (the instruction booklet that comes with the machine has lots of great recipe ideas), hitting select allows you to pick the setting the machine will need to be on to cook the most delicious and successful bread. Crust color has three options, light, medium, and dark. The doneness options are accompanied by the letters L, P, and H, respectively. I don't know what the letters are supposed to correspond to, but in my head I've labeled them as "Lightly done," "Pretty darn well done," and "Heavily done." Finally, the start/stop button does exactly what it implies and start and stops the machine.

For my bread machine's maiden voyage, I chose to bake the 100% whole wheat bread recipe from the book. Personally, I have always preferred the nutty, deep flavor of whole wheat bread and I like the idea of nourishing my body with lots of great whole grains and fiber (while still eating delicious bread). The recipe was very simple, calling for 1 and 5/8 cups water, 1/3 cup brown sugar, two teaspoons salt, 4 and 2/3 cups whole wheat flour, and three teaspoons active dry yeast. I added the ingredients to the baking pan in the very specific order detailed in the instruction manual. The instructions are incredibly adamant that you MUST add liquid ingredients first, then dry ingredients, then yeast. DO NOT let your yeast touch any liquid ingredients when adding them to the pan. From the intensity of the manual's writing, I can only assume that one of two things must happen if your yeast comes into contact with the water. 1. The entire bread machine explodes, your house burns down, and you end up homeless on the street, or 2. Your bread just doesn't turn out very well and has one giant, yeasty blob in the center. I'll let each of you decide which is more likely. Once my ingredients were safely in the pan (with not one atom of yeast yet touching the water), I loaded the pan into the maker, closed the lid, and selected my settings. Since I was making whole wheat bread, which apparently requires a longer rise time than white bread, I selected the "Whole Wheat" function. As a bread machine novice, I didn't know what option to choose for my crust between light, medium, and dark, I started with medium to get a good grasp of what to expect with the intention to change in the future based on what came out at the end. Finally, I hit start. That's it. The bread was on its way.

Upon hitting start, the bread machine began its first knead cycle, a 10 minute bout of mixing. I was very nervous at first because there was quite a bit of flour clinging to the side of the pan and I was not confident in the small mixing blade's ability to push the dough high enough onto the sides to collect the straggling pieces. Oh, how wrong I was. Tiny but mighty, the mixing blade absolutely pummels the dough ball around the pan, collecting every bit of flour. This was quite an invigorating experience for me as I was falling absolutely head-over-heels in love with my new Oster 2 lb. Expressbake Breadmaker (not sponsored yet, but I will continue to dream).

Next came the first rise, which was 25 minutes long. I have not yet mentioned how incredibly long of a process baking one loaf of bread actually is. The entire thing of beauty takes three hours and 4o minutes, aka an eternity when you're waiting for your first beautiful loaf. This first rise was followed by a second knead of 20 minutes and a 30 minute rise.

It was at this time that the spaceship-esque viewing hole became completely occluded with condensation. I was very sad. Everyday Jake and I make sure we get in our 10,000 steps. This evening I was walking the majority of them back and forth from our living room to our kitchen and almost every (very very short) lap I would stop and take a look at the bread. Now this was definitely adding a lot of time to my walk and was not helping me keep my heart rate elevated, but my spirit was most definitely elevated by the beauty of the baking bread. This further added to my sadness at not being able to see the contents of the machine as I then had to start picking up the pace of my walk. After the second rise, the dough is punched down, or mixed for about 30 seconds, in preparation for the final and longest rise of 70 minutes. After that my house finally began to smell wonderful as my little bread ball began to bake. After putting two hours and 35 minutes into this loaf of bread I felt like a parent sending their child off to college. I'd invested so much time and love into that little guy, but I was ready to let it go to seek out knowledge and success. By the way, the machine gets VERY hot at this stage. Make sure you don't set it on your important stack of papers or next to the incredibly flammable kitchen cleaner. Also, if you're anything like me your first reaction to a warm kitchen device is to wrap your arms around it and embrace the delicious warmth and scent emanating from said machine. I cannot stress this enough, do NOT do that. Resist the urge. You will absolutely burn yourself.

Finally, three hours and 40 minutes after I began my adventure, I heard the angelic singing of three short beeps coming from my breadmaker signaling that the bread was ready! I ran out to the kitchen to see what I had made. Upon initial inspection, the bread looked browned around the outside with a slightly sunken center. I am chalking the dip in the middle up to the fact that I did not use bread flour as I couldn't find an option at Walmart that was both whole wheat and bread flour. Bread flour has supplemental gluten to hold up stronger and keep loaves more elevated, so if you make bread in an Oster brand 2 lb. Expressbake Breadmaker I recommend finding the real deal ingredients to work with. After visually inspecting my masterpiece, I was ready to remove the bread from the machine. The directions state to carefully remove the pan from the machine with oven mitts, tip the pan over, and let the bread slide out. Easier said than done, as I learned. When I first tried to take the pan out of the machine, it wouldn't budge. My entire bread-making life began to flash before my eyes. This loaf was doomed, and I would never taste the delicious, nutty flavor of the whole wheat bread. I resolved that I would use whatever brute force necessary to get that pan out of the machine to receive my prize. I applied just slightly more force than my first attempt and the pan popped right out. Perhaps I had overreacted.

Once I turned the bread over, I noticed the herculean mixing knob still stuck in the bottom of my bread. This initially seems like it could be an emergency, but the user manual cautions you not to worry. Simply pick it out with a fork but be careful because it is still very hot.

I flipped the bread over and staged my best attempt at an artsy recipe blog photo. Though the machine did all of the work for me besides measuring and putting the ingredients into the pan, I placed the loaf next to an apron and a rolling pin to look like I played some part in the art before me. At this point you are supposed to let the bread cool on a cooling rack for 15 minutes before cutting into it. I definitely did not do that.

I immediately sliced into that bad boy. Friendly reminder, use serrated knives when cutting bread so you don't smash your slice with a straight blade! The outside of the bread was very crispy and difficult to cut through, however the inside was very moist with a good crumb. The flavor I was dreaming of throughout the cooking process was absolutely present as I took my first bite. Almost pure bliss. I, out of the goodness of my heart, had eaten the end piece and given Jake the softer second piece. The outside was too crunchy and really took away from the overall experience of my first slice. That being said, Jake really enjoyed his piece. When asked, he rated it 4/5 stars. One star was taken off, he said, in case I ever make a more delicious loaf and it knocks him off his feet completely. For my first attempt at using the breadmaker I am happy with 4/5 stars.

I have a few takeaways from my bread making experience. First, the entire process is very easy! You put everything in the pan, set it, and forget it. The hardest part is just waiting for it to be ready to eat. Second, the medium doneness made the outside too crunchy. I will use the light setting from here on out in the hopes that eating the end piece won't be so much work on my jaw. Finally, a breadmaker is a good option if you love homemade bread but be aware that it is pretty sizable. We have a small house and I have used practically every square inch of cabinet space. I don't like having small appliances cluttering up my counter, so I have to find a spot for the bread machine outside the house in our entryway or garage. Other than that, I have no major complaints about the Oster 2 lb. Expressbake Breadmaker. I will be making more bread in the future, possibly trying out one of the more adventurous recipes listed in the user manual. Let me know in the comments if you have used a breadmaker in the past and your thoughts on the experience! Feel free to share any recipes you found worked well and I will give them a try! Thanks for reading, now I'm going to go eat some more bread!