Honey Graham Bread

My favorite part of bread baking:

"Punch down!"

This is a delicious, slightly sweet bread. It's not nearly as dense as some grain breads, but it's not fluffy either (a good quality). Mr. Big Food thinks it will make excellent French toast, and I agree.

Lovely to knead, too. Very cooperative.  Graham flour from Bob's Red Mill.

If you want to fill your home with the scent of home-baked bread, this is the one. It bakes for 45 minutes, but the kitchen starts fill up with honey graham in about 10 minutes.

Recipe below the fold.

HONEY GRAHAM BREAD OR ROLLS

Makes 2 loaves or 24 rolls

2 C milk

1/3 C honey

1 Tbsp salt

½ stick butter

½ C warm water

2 packages or cakes active dry or compressed yeast

2 ½ C unsifted graham flour

3 ¾ C (about) unsifted flour

Scald milk, add honey, salt, and butter, and cool to lukewarm. Measure warm water into a warm mixing bowl, sprinkle over or crumble yeast, add lukewarm milk mixture, graham flour, and 2 C flour, and beat until smooth. Stir in enough additional flour to make a soft dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic, 8-10 minutes. Place dough in a greased bowl, turn to grease entire surface, Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down and let rise again until doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes. Punch dough down, turn out onto a lightly floured board, divide in half, shape each half into a loaf, and place in 2 greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pans. Or, form each dough half into a 12 inch roll, cut each into 12 equal pieces, shape each piece into a smooth ball, and place in greased 9-inch round cake pans. Cover loaves or rolls and let rise again until doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes. If baking loaves, preheat oven to 350^o, and bake loaves 45 minutes or until done. If baking rolls, preheat oven to 400^o, and bake 20 minutes or until done.