Sue Gregg's Whole Grain Bread (With Einkorn)

I had high hopes for this bread; the dough was easy to work with once I realized that it wasn't going to behave exactly like dough made with commercial wheat. In my experience Einkorn doughs are always sticky at first.

I used my new Kitchenaid mixer (a new 1 horsepower model from Costco) and found myself wishing that I had chosen the Bosch instead. I can't really imagine the KA handling a double batch of this dough. I'm going to spend another week with the KA before I decide if I should take it back or not. The Bosch is just so much more expensive than the KA, especially if you want the stainless steel bowl, and I don't like the aesthetics of it, especially the blender port since I have a Vitamix and don't need the Bosch blender.

Anyway, I digress. I started the dough last night so that the freshly ground Einkorn flour (done in my Vitamix) could soak with buttermilk. This morning I added in the rest of the ingredients (including several cups of 80% extraction Einkorn flour) and followed the directions for all four rises. The first rise occurs in a bowl, the second rise occurs again in the bowl, the third rise occurs in the bread pans (pictured above), and the fourth rise is the oven spring that occurs at the beginning of baking, which in this case was evident but not dramatic.

These are the lovely loaves! It was hard to let them cool completely before cutting in, but I was disciplined. In honor of such lovely bread I also made fresh sweet butter from raw cream.

Yum! This bread has a nice crumb, good flavor, and it slices easily and evenly. I definitely prefer this recipe to the one I used last week, and I would make it again. I do hope the Kitchenaid mixer can manage a double batch as bread baking in the heat of summer isn't something that I want to do everyday; with a double batch I could bake once a week and freeze the extra loaves until needed.

I still need to tackle sourdough bread, but this bread will do for now and may even be preferred for sandwiches and toast.