Whole-Wheat Bread with Multigrain Soaker (Mellow Bakers-February)

On Thursday of this past week it started to feel kind of like a bakery around here, at least to me it did.  There are 9 more loaves scattered around the rest of the kitchen.  Just kidding!!!!

I decided to make all of the Whole Wheat Bread's on the list for Mellow Bakers for February.  I try to make the breads as written the first time, and then if I don't like something about them, I change them the next time.  I don't like the crunchies too much in my breads, but I thought I'd give the millet a try since I had some in my pantry anyway.  I poured the boiling water over my grains the night before and let them sit all night on the counter just to give them maximum soaking time:)

 On baking day I measured my flours and salt into my stand mixer bowl, gave them a good stir with my dough whisk, added the soaker, and gave it another really good stirring with my dough whisk to make sure everything was well incorporated.  Then I added the rest of the ingredients and started with the paddle attachment of my stand mixer for a few minutes before switching to the dough hook.

After mixing for 4 minutes or so with the dough hook, I turned the dough out onto my rolling mat and also kneaded it by hand for a couple minutes before I put it into a bowl for the bulk fermentation.  This was the most dough I had ever worked with in one baking session before- 4lb, 1oz.  I had to go buy a third pan so I would have enough to bake these.  Here are the breads before rising ( in the warmed oven with the light on) 

and then after an hour when they were ready for loading into the pre-steamed oven.  I ground a few tablespoons of golden flax seed in my spice grinder, spritzed the top of the loaves with water and sprinkled with the ground flax right after placing the dough logs into their pans. 

I baked these at 375 for about 30 minutes and after several burns to the fingers, I managed to get the loaves out of their pans and onto a cooling rack:

Even though I was stuffed and felt about to pop (we went out to dinner after the bread came out of the oven), I had a slice with jam before I went to bed.  I couldn't wait until the next day to taste it.

This bread is really quite good.  It's a little crunchy from the millet, but not overwhelmingly so.  I did not even notice a texture from the cracked wheat as I ate the bread, so it must have softened quite abit.  I placed two of the loaves in paper bags and put those into gallon, plastic zip-lock bags that I left partially open.  This did a nice job of keeping the crust firm and chewy instead of soft, so that the next day this bread made wonderful sandwiches for our lunch.

Thank you for visiting my blog and please visit Mellow Bakers if you'd like to see what others made for February!