10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread has amazing texture and taste. It’s moist and full of goodness in every bite. 10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread is deliciously healthy, makes perfect toast and is a snap to make in a bread machine. It’s so good that it has earned the CJHK seal of approval!
What is the CJHK seal of approval you ask? It’s the Master Taste Tester’s ultimate compliment! However, it took a lot of experimenting to earn the CJHK seal of approval.
This is a bread that I make about every two weeks. The first time I made it over a year ago, I only used whole wheat flour. The bread was good, but quite dense.
Over time, I experimented by adding bread flour to the mixture, varying the proportions of whole wheat flour to bread flour, varying the quantities of the other ingredients, etc.
I finally got the recipe right!
Ingredients for 10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread
Making the bread is a bit of a misnomer because the bread machine actually did all of the work once I had added the ingredients. I used an egg, water, olive oil, granulated sugar, Kosher salt, whole wheat flour, bread flour, 10-grain cereal, vital wheat gluten and instant yeast.
Why Weigh Ingredients
The ultimate key to success in making any bread is to weigh the ingredients. I learned a long time ago that there is a lot of variability in eggs, flour and measuring cups/spoons.
In the United States, the USDA has established these minimum weights per dozen eggs for the different categories of eggs:
- Jumbo: 30 ounces (about 2.5 ounces per egg)
- Extra-Large: 27 ounces (about 2.25 ounces per egg)
- Large: 24 ounces (about 2 ounces per egg)
- Medium: 21 ounces (about 1.75 ounces per egg)
- Small: (18 ounces (about 1.5 ounces per egg)
Because the USDA standards are based on a dozen eggs, one can expect variability in the weight of the individual eggs. For example, I weighed each of the dozen large eggs that I purchased yesterday. The total weight was 24.28 ounces. The smallest of the eggs weighed 1.80 ounces and the largest weighed 2.19 ounces.
Even if two whole eggs weigh the same, what’s on the inside could differ because of the weight/thickness of the shells.
Flour also has a lot of variability per measured cup. This variability is caused by both the accuracy of the measuring cup and the method used. Many sources recommend that you fluff the flour, lightly spoon it into your measuring cup and level off the top with a knife. However, even with this method, the flour can weigh anywhere between 4.25 ounces and 5.5 ounces.
There are lots of inexpensive kitchen scales that one can purchase. The one that I use only cost $14. It is super accurate and I use it all the time!
When putting my recipes together, I consistently follow Julia Child’s recommendation of 1 cup of flour equals 5 ounces.
An added benefit of weighing all of the ingredients is that there are no measuring cups/spoons to clean up!
Making the 10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread
Because of the importance that I place on weighing the ingredients, I started by placing the pan of the bread machine on the kitchen scale and zeroing it out. Then I added the eggs and enough water to equal the desired weight of the eggs plus water. After breaking up the egg yolk with a small spoon, I zeroed the scale and added the olive oil, again by weight. Then, I zeroed the scale again and added the honey by weight.
After that, I added the remaining ingredients that I had weighed, ending with the yeast on the top. I set the bread machine to the whole wheat cycle, pressed start and walked away.
After a little less than 4 hours, I ended up with a perfect loaf of 10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread. It was firm enough that the Master Taste Tester could easily slice off extremely thin pieces with no problem, but moist enough that it consistently held together.
It used to be that the Master Taste Tester’s favorite bread was my Bran Bread. However, because of its overall rounded flavor and consistency, he much prefers this 10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread. Yum!
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10-Grain Whole Wheat Bread (Bread Machine)
Equipment
- Bread Machine
Ingredients
- 1 large eggs, plus enough filtered water to total 13 ounces (about 1 ½ cups)(See Tip 1)
- 2 Tablespoons plus ¾ teaspoons (1.125 ounces) olive oil
- ½ Tablespoon granulated sugar
- ½ Tablespoon (0.375 ounces) Kosher salt
- ¾ cup (4.5 ounces) 10-grain cereal (See Tip 2)
- 1 ½ cups (7.5 ounces) whole wheat flour
- 1 ¾ cups (8.75 ounces) bread flour
- 1 Tablespoon plus ¼ teaspoon (0.45 ounces) vital wheat gluten
- 1 ½ teaspoons (0.1875 ounces) bread machine or instant yeast
Instructions
- Add all ingredients in the order listed to the bread machine pan. Select Wheat Bread. Press Start.
- Yield: 2-pound loaf. (See Tip 3)
Chula's Expert Tips
- It's important to use filtered water. Tap water contains chlorine which can retard or kill the yeast. By measure the water would be around 1 ½ cups plus 1 Tablespoon.
- I used Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain 10 Grain Hot Cereal. You need to make sure that it's hot cereal.
- With multiple times making this bread, I altered the recipe as follows: (1) Instead of water plus egg totaling 13.5 ounces, I reduced the combination to 13 ounces; (2) I substituted ½ Tablespoon of granulated sugar for the original 2 ¾ Tablespoons of honey. The honey made the bread too dark from cooking; (3) I reduced the 2 ¼ teaspoons of Kosher salt to 1 ½ teaspoons or ½ Tablespoon; (4) I reduced the 1 ½ Tablespoons of yeast to 1 Tablespoon.
Tried the recipe minus wheat gluten. 1 ½ Tablespoons of yeast seemed to be a bit too much and the dough rose over the top of the bread pan – I use only the dough cycle on my machine so that wasn’t a problem as I bake all my bread in the oven. I had one standard loaf and a smaller half size loaf as there seemed to be too much dough for one standard loaf. I will try the recipe again using a sandwich loaf pan either that or decrease the yeast to 2 1/4 teaspoons. I love the combination of ingredients, eggs, honey, olive oil and all I had was a 12-grain cereal from a Canadian Bulk Barn store and Canadian flour worked well. I like to experiment and I also added a tablespoon of herbs de Provence for flavour. Your Jewish Rye recipe is very good and a favourite of ours. Copy and paste of a photo from my e-mail will not work.
Helen,
I also like to experiment. Adding the tablespoon of herbs de Provence sounds like a winner. My bread machine makes a large loaf so the rising isn’t a problem. However, just this morning, my husband suggested reducing the yeast which I will do on the next batch. I’d love to hear how the bread turns out with the reduced amount of yeast!
Chula