• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

One simple and effective way is just to add half a cup of sprouted grains or the same amount of whole or coarsely cracked grains (steamed chewy-tender, drained and cooled) to the well-kneaded, elastic dough for any normal, high-rising whole wheat loaf. There will be flavor and nubble aplenty, and the bread will look pretty too.

Using Non-Wheat Flours

Another sort of mixed-grain bread simply includes a little of each of several kinds of grain flours along with the wheat. If you want to try this you can keep your loaf light by following the example of commercial bakeries: add only a tiny amount of each non-wheat flour. A very good kneader using super high-gluten wheat flour could include as much as ⅔ cup total of non-wheat flours as part of the 6 cups in a normal plain bread recipe. Even then, remember, you have reduced your margin for error, so be careful to knead and ferment the dough just right.

One consideration here is that most other grains are blander-tasting than wheat. When you include them in whole wheat bread, they generally do little more than make the loaf heavier and less flavorful. Three exceptions:

Rye flour, added in amounts up to ½ cup per loaf in place of an equal quantity of wheat flour, enriches the flavor of the bread and makes a moister, heartier loaf. Expect the dough to be a little bit on the sticky side. If you want the bread to taste like rye, add a spoonful of caraway seeds. Breads with a larger proportion of rye flour succeed best with a different mixing technique; see the Rye Breads section for much more about all this.

Buckwheat flour is strong-flavored and very heavy. Use it in small quantities—¼ to ⅓ cup per loaf will make a hefty buckwheat flavor. The loaf will have a warm fragrance and the characteristic blue-gray color. Sunflower seeds and raisins both complement buckwheat’s rather strident flavor beautifully. (For a very tasty recipe including buckwheat flour check the Saltless Bread section. Add 2 ½ teaspoons of salt to the flours listed in the recipe, if you aren’t going salt-free.)

Triticale flour (trit’-ih-kay’-lee) is a newcomer among grains. A cross between wheat and rye, it was developed for hardiness and high protein content. Unfortunately, depending on where the grain was grown, and which of hundreds of strains it came from, it may have considerable gluten content or very little. We have made high, sweet-flavored loaves with 100 percent triticale flour, and then with another batch of flour have not been able to get much rise at all. If you want to try, we suggest beginning with half wheat and half triticale, to see how it goes. Be careful not to overknead. We suggest doubling the honey in the recipe. If you are buying grain to grind yourself, plump grains will be high in starch, slim ones higher in protein, as a rule.

With the exception of these three, we find that chunky grains (either sprouts or coarsely cracked, lightly cooked cereals) work better than flours. Perhaps because the dough can support a larger amount of grain than of flour, the grains give more flavor and character to the bread; its appearance and keeping quality benefit as well.

NOTE: Here’s a problem we haven’t solved: the grains on the outside of the crust will bake into hard nuggets. We have never found a way around this, though we have tried. Chew circumspectly, and let us know if you come up with a solution.

Cracked Wheat Breads

Cracked Wheat Bread I is the nearest thing to the popular commercial honey-wheatberry bread. It is light, pale, pretty, delicious—far better in every way than its store-bought counterpart. Cracked Wheat Bread II is a very different loaf: hefty, tender, with a rich full flavor that comes from the happy combination of wheat and dates. The wheat sings out because the bread has no dairy products to mellow its flavor; dates, with their natural fruity sugar, sweeten the loaf.

Cracked Wheat Bread I

⅓ cup coarse cracked wheat (55 g)

OR

¾ cup bulgur wheat (128 g)

2 tablespoons molasses (30