Healthy wholemeal bread

I bought a packet of wholemeal flour few months ago thinking of baking a loaf of wholemeal bread, but didn't get to find recipes until I realised that the flour is going to expire next month! Didn't know that wholemeal flour has such short 'life-span', and wonder if it is ok to still use if it is over the expiry date? Anyway, i will try to use them up asap, instead of feeding the trash bin again.

Was following dodol & mochi's blog and just so coincident that she did a 65 deg C Tangzhong Wholemeal Bread Loaf. The last i tried bread making using tangzhong, the result of sandwich bun turned out very good! This is it, I'm going to use her recipe to make my first wholemeal bread ;-)

As i hasn't been successful to manual knead the bread dough, and partly because i'm lazy, i used the BM to help me do the kneading job! As the original recipe yields two 22cm(L) x 10.5cm(W) x 10cm(H) loaves, i halved the recipe since it's like a test trial and also because i only have 1 bread tin.

Despite that my dough didn't rise properly, the smell and taste of bread is wonderful! After 2 days, i put the bread in the microwave for half a minute to warm it and it turns out still as soft.

The bread has nice brown crust

Ingredients/ Method:

Water Roux (65 deg C tangzhong)

250g water

50g bread flour

1. Cook 250g water with 50g bread flour at medium low heat, keep stirring until becomes thicken and no lumps left. Cook until 65 deg C, or if you do not have a thermometer, cook until mixture resembles baby porridge.

2. Transfer to clean bowl and cover with cling wrap to prevent skin forming.

3. Water roux can be stored for 2 days, and if colour turn dark grey, to discard.

65 deg C Tangzhong Wholemeal Bread Loaf

(make 22cm x 10.5cm x 1ocm loaf)

1. Put all ingredients, except butter, in sequence as per bread machine, and use dough function and knead for 30 mins. Add butter after dough is formed, about 10 mins. The BM pre-set kneading time is 20 mins, re-start the dough function and knead for a further 10 mins.

2. Round up dough and place it in a greased bowl and cover with cling wrap. Proof until double double in size about an hour. (Next time will try proofing the dough in the BM.)

3. Divide dough into 4 portions and shape it into smooth ball shape. Rest for 15 min.

4. Flatten dough and roll into longish shape. Roll it up to a sausage shape and seal tightly.

5. Place dough in loaf tin and cover with cling wrap. Proof till dough reach 80% of tin.

6. Bake at 180 deg C for 30 mins or until golden brown.

7. Remove from oven and immediately unmould bread onto wire rack to cool completely.