Take THAT wheat bread!

Ok, so, let me start this by saying, this is still not 100% the way that I want my wheat bread to come out.

I think I got a little too excited on the second rise and rushed things a teeny bit, it said 1-2 hours and I stopped promptly at 1 hour.

But, I did get a good crumb, relatively fluffy, though not as tall as desired, loaf of wheat bread that for the first time ever did NOT weigh 85.6 pounds. This loaf of bread could not kill a man, major accomplishment.

I started with this recipe, from King Arthur Flour, which has truly never failed me on a recipe, their testers must be working overtime because they crank out some amazing stuff!

I did make a few substitutions and changes (of course), first I couldn't find Baker's Special Dry Milk anywhere so I omitted it and I'm going to order it from the website.

Second, I only used 3 cups of flour, it didn't need the extra 1/2 cup for me, and I replaced 1/2 cup of the flour with bread flour to make it a little easier to knead.

Third, took the advice of the commenters on the website and added 3 tsps of vital wheat gluten, which is pretty much going in every loaf of bread I make now, because it was awesome-blossom.

This made fabulously crunchy grilled cheeses but still maintained the soft interior, I used a cheddar with scallions and shallots in it from Trader Joes that is amazing. And the husbando made us his famous Caesar salad, adapted from his father's even more famous recipe, and we threw some roasted tomatoes in there for a change of pace.

Yuuuummmmmy!