Cracked Wheat Bread

I love this recipe. It is excellent as written. My wife loves molasses, so I have made the recipe using 3 Tbs molasses and 1 Tbs honey. I have also made it with 3 Tbs honey and 1 Tbs molasses. The bread came out great both ways. On the the second try I added 3 Tbs of vital wheat gluten, and was very pleased with the results. I now do this every time.

If I could give this bread 10 stars I would. I've been baking whole wheat and cracked wheat breads for 45 years. I've had some successes, but I've had failures too, and they all involved a heavy loaf, too dense to enjoy. But this recipe came out super high, light, nutty, moist, and a little chewy. My whole family loved it. I followed the recipe amounts exactly, but:1) You really don't need to simmer the cracked wheat berries. Just add them to the water, bring it to boiling, turn off the heat and cover the pot. In 10-15 minutes the berries will be soft and will have absorbed all the water.2) Add 1 teaspoon of lecithin to the dough. I did this at the stage where the milk and butter, etc. was added to the bowl. Lecithin is a naturally occurring ingredient derived from egg yolks and natural oils. It causes gluten work better, yielding a higher, lighter loaf with a little chew. It's tasteless in the final loaf. Virtually all professional bakers add lecithin to their doughs. I buy it in liquid form on Amazon.3) The photo here of the two loaves: I made the recipe plus 50% more of everything because I have large loaf pans. Next time I'll double the recipe and spread it across three loaf pans. A loaf of fresh, warm homemade bread makes a nice gift. No one will ever turn you down.

I was looking for a recipe that used dried spent grains or spent grain flour and couldn't find one so tried this recipe and it worked great. I used the dried whole spent grain instead of the cracked wheat and used 1/4 cup spent grain flour and reduced the whole wheat flour by 1/4 cup. Wonderful nutty flavour. Love it! If you have warm grains from brewing you could skip boiling the dried grains and just add the wet grains to the bowl, but make sure they cool off first.

I was looking for a recipe that used dried spent grains or spent grain flour and couldn't find one so tried this recipe and it worked great. I used the dried whole spent grain instead of the cracked wheat and used 1/4 cup spent grain flour and reduced the whole wheat flour by 1/4 cup. Wonderful nutty flavour. Love it! If you have warm grains from brewing you could skip boiling the dried grains and just add the wet grains to the bowl, but make sure they cool off first.

SO good! This is a light, simple recipe. I, too, was afraid that this was going to be a dense bread, but I'm pleasantly surprised. I did have to let the bread rise for quite a while the second time, probably close to another hour instead of a half hour, and the loaves still turned out a little on the small side. I will just have to let them rise longer next time to achieve the desired height. I have no complaints about the taste of the bread, though. This recipe makes great toast in the morning.

This bread was very good!! I did change the serving size to "30" so it would make enough dough for 2- 9x5 inch loaves. The original recipe only made two small loaves for me and I like a little larger loaf. I used demerara sugar in place of the honey and molasses, used 1 tablespoon SAF instant yeast and added 2 tablespoons of vital wheat gluten. I cooked the wheat, let it cool; then added 1 tsp. demerara sugar, the wheat flour and yeast and let it sit for 10 minutes until bubbly. I then stired in all the other ingredients to the yeast-wheat mixture and put the dough into my bread machine for 15 to 20 minutes( just to stir and knead the dough) then I let it rise until it doubled in an oiled bowl. Shaped into 2 loaves and let it rise again in the bread pans. Baked at 350 degrees for 40 minutes... Awesome!!! My whole family loves this bread.. Note: If you use all-purpose flour add some vital wheat gluten or use Bread flour so your bread will rise better and have a better texture.