Country Wheat Bread

There is a really yummy bakery here called Zingermans. My friend Heather and I took their Whole Grain Class. It was awesome! I left with 6 loaves of yummy bread and hopefully the skills I need to reproduce the recipes they taught us. :) I thought I would share one of the recipes here.

 Ingredients:
1 cup potatoes (boiled and mashed)
1 3/4 cup milk (whole, room temperature)
1/4 cup butter (room temp)
1/4 cup honey
2 tsp. instant yeast
5 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 tsp. sea salt

Preheat the oven 375 F 20 minutes prior to baking.

Mixing the dough

1. Boil the potatoes until they are fork tender.
2. Remove potatoes from water. Mash the potatoes and let them cool.
3. Once potatoes have cooled put them in mixing bowl. Add the milk, butter, honey, instant yeast, and half the flour. Stir until the mixture looks like a batter.
4. Add the rest of the flour and salt. Stir until the mixture comes together into a dough. (the dough is pretty crumbly at this point. Don't add more liquid. They have handy little paddles for us to use while kneading. At home I use a rice paddle to gather up the loose pieces and my other hand to knead. It works pretty well.)
5. Scrape the dough from the bowl onto your work surface.
6. Knead the dough for 8 minutes, until it feels nice and strong and doesn't tear easily when pulled upon.
7. Put the dough in a spray bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
8. Ferment for 1 hour.
9. After the hour, give the dough a fold: turn the dough out of the container onto a lightly floured surface. Fold it towards you about 2/3 of the way, then away from you. Then fold it in the same manner from left to right or right to left.
10. Once folded, let the dough rest in the bowl again for 30 minutes, covered with plastic.
11. After 30 minutes, divide the dough into 2 pieces of equal size. Shape each piece into a loaf shape and place in a sprayed load pan.
12. Cover with plastic wrap and let ferment for 60-90 minutes, or until the loaves are 1 1/2 times their original size.
13. When ready, bake for 30-35 minutes, or until loaves are nicely browned. Remove from pans and cool on wire rack.