Wheat Bran White Bread

It's been an off week 'round these parts (mostly because I've slept through about half of it?). I caught some sort of stomach bug (or possibly food poisoning) over the weekend, so I spent the first few days of the week throwing up (no more "vomit-free since 2003." I suppose that supports Stephanie's typecasting of me as Ted Mosby. Ha.) and sleeeeeeeeping. So since there's not much to update on this week, here's a tasty little recipe I whipped up recently.

so good!

I had a hankering for some PBJ recently, but sadly had no bread to make it with. I decided to bake a loaf while I did homework. Now usually, I prefer to eat whole wheat bread. But since I don't currently have any wheat flour (and since I have a Costco-sized 25-lb. bag of  all-purpose flour...), I used white flour instead. I still wanted to be at least a little bit on the healthy side, so I looked up several bread recipes (including two I've used before), made some adjustments, and came up with this. And actually, that's my favorite part about this recipe; I put it together! This is a BIG deal for a non-baker like me!! (*pats self on back*)

The result was a beautiful loaf of soft, delicious homemade bread! (I'm still in shock.)

Wheat Bran White Bread
recipe by ME!

INGREDIENTS

2 t yeast
1 ¼ c. warm milk
¼ c honey/agave
¼ c olive oil
2 ¼ c flour
½ c wheat bran
1 t sea salt/kosher salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Add honey and oil. Let rest 5-10 minutes (or until foamy).
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, wheat bran, and salt. 
3. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix until everything is combined and your dough forms. Mix well (use your hands) and knead for 5-10 minutes.
4. Form dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover the bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
5. Punch down the dough and knead for another 5-10 minutes. Form into a loaf and place into a greased loaf pan. Cover and let rise 1 hour or until doubled in size.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes! The bread should be a light golden brown. Feel free to adjust the time, per the quirks of your oven. (The recipes I looked at said to leave the bread in for 30 minutes, but our oven is overeager and the bread was ready after 21 minutes or so.)
7. *IMPORTANT* Carefully remove the loaf from the pan (so the outside of the bread won't continue to cook. Also, don't burn yo'self!) and let the loaf COOL completely (so the inside of the bread DOES continue to cook; that's the important part!) before slicing.
8. Enjoy! :)

Tastes even better with Amish apple butter!