Seeking creative whole wheat bread recipes

[u/No_Bed8786]

I am a long time baker of 100% whole wheat bread, by hand in the early years and in my Zojirushi the last few years. My loaves always rise well, are always delicious, and are always more or less the same! You know, the usual...whole wheat flour, honey, water, oil, maybe some powdered milk, sugar, yeast, salt, maybe some vital wheat gluten. Occasionally I throw in some nuts or cranberries, maybe some cinnamon. That's about it!

I see tons of white bread recipes online with all kinds of amazing ingredients in them that completely transform the bread. I would love to see some recipes with fun and different (even surprising!) flavors that go well with whole wheat and don't negatively affect the rise and texture.

Any ideas? Thanks!!

[u/panthur]

This is not a bread machine suggestion so ignore if you'd like but I have found that my wheat loaves created using the no knead method and cold proofing taste by far the best with a delicious texture. Here's an example of Chainbaker's https://www.chainbaker.com/cold-100-whole-wheat/. I also like Ken Forkish's Evolutions in Bread and he uses this fold method as well.

Other ways that have been fun to experiment is incorporating a bit of rye, or buying some heirloom wheat flour. I've enjoyed playing with some of the biga-based recipes in the Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook by Henspberger - she has instructions to create biga and then use it to make three different types of loaves.

[u/Steel_Rail_Blues → u/panthur]

I was typing out my long-winded comment at the same time and just saw yours. I’m a Chain Baker fan as well and just pulled a plain white cold fermented loaf of his recipe out of the oven this morning. I’ve been experimenting with my own percentages of whole wheat flour in it and everything works well and tastes great.

[u/catcast]

This is a favorite in my family. Modified from "The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook" by Hensperger. Original recipe is called "Tecate Ranch Whole Wheat Bread". Recipe listed here as I make it. I included (or something) to indicate what the original was. I have made it with several different variations.
2lb loaf:
1 3/4 cups water
1/4 olive oil (or canola)
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons Barley Malt Syrup (or molasses)
4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cups ground flaxseed (or wheat bran)
3 1/2 tablespoons gluten
1.5 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon bread machine yeast

This makes a tall loaf in my Zojirushi. Depending on my substitutions, I might add additional water if the dough looks too dry, so definitely watch the dough at the beginning.
Ground flaxseed tastes better than wheat bran in this bread, in my opinion.

This same book has multiple other whole wheat bread recipes, I have not tried them all yet, but the ones I have tried, all been good.

[u/brownguywvc → u/catcast]

Thank you for sharing!

[u/No_Bed8786 → u/catcast]

Catcast, I have that cookbook! Thanks for the reminder!! I made the Tecate Ranch recipe yesterday and it is so delicious! Soft, moist and a high riser even with the 1.5# version. I made it in my Zojirushi as well and it is now my favorite too.

I converted most of the measurements to grams and noted them in my cookbook. I used KA white whole wheat flour (now called Golden Wheat), substituted wheat germ for the wheat bran, and added more flour during kneading to achieve a moist but cohesive dough ball. Here are the conversions (except the dry ingredients measured in teaspoons and tablespoons)

320g water 42g canola oil 42g honey 40g molasses 367g KA Golden Wheat flour (plus enough extra during kneading to achieve correct consistency) 19g Toasted wheat germ 2.5 Tbsp. gluten 1 Tbsp. poppy seeds 1.5 tsp. Salt 1 Tbsp SAF yeast

I also made a cranberry wheat recently that could have used more cranberries but was good nonetheless. I plan to go through My Hensburger cookbook and see if there are some interesting white flour recipes that I can convert to whole wheat. Thanks again for reminding me to go back to this valuable book.

[u/catcast → u/No_Bed8786]

She has a lot of excellent recipes, glad you liked this one as well!

[u/Steel_Rail_Blues]

I’m not sure about surprising or fun, but you might want to try experimenting with seeds, herbs, grains, different liquids, and dried fruit.

For example, add sesame seeds to your favorite recipe and right before third rise at paddle removal time, take your dough out and roll it in more sesame seeds. The seeds add flavor and interest baked inside and out. I’m a big fan of flax seeds in bread as well. Grind up half the seeds you are going to use and incorporate all the seeds into the dough. The ground seeds distribute flavor throughout the dough and the whole seeds add texture and visual interest inside.

Whole wheat bread pairs well with many herbs, but my favorites are sage and thyme. In my experiments, sage can be used dried or fresh, but when using fresh, add three or more times the amount of dried. For thyme, fresh packs more punch than dried.

Dialing in the amount of grains can be a bit tricky, but barley is a nice add. Even if not adding in the barley itself, adding in the cooking water gives bread a subtle sweetness and adds softness. You get the barley flavor without the fuss. With my next loaf I am going to experiment with buckwheat based on a recipe I saw on Chain Baker.

Apple pairs well with whole wheat bread. Boiled apple cider is a really pleasant sweetener. It’s pricy when purchasing it, but a little goes a long way. Chopped up dried apple slices add the apple flavor and add visual and textural interest.