Homemade Whole Wheat Bread and Whole Wheat Tortillas

Happy Monday! I really like Mondays lately. I have designated it my get-things-done-for-the-week day. I clean my house, do all the laundry, bake bread, and make tortillas. So I stay in comfy clothes all day and get things ready for the week so that I’m free the rest of the week and have a clean house. I still do daily maintenance but I deep clean Mondays. Anyway, you just want to know about the recipes, right?

I grew up with homemade tortillas, although they were not whole wheat. My dad made them, but he never used a recipe, and I could never get my tortillas to be anything but a cracker if I didn’t use a recipe. I love this recipe for 100% whole wheat tortillas found over on 100 Days of Real Food, and I follow it exactly. I copied and pasted it below. Check out this website for awesome healthy meals!

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**As you can see, my tortillas bubbled nicely, and they do this every time! I place them between a towel while I am cooking them and then store in a bag in my fridge when they are cooled down. We use them for wraps, Café Rio style salads, burritos, or just to eat plain! I warm them on the stove for about 30 seconds.

Homemade Whole Wheat Tortillas

Serves: 12 Tortillas

Adapted from Anson Mills

Ingredients

• 2½ cups whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur’s white whole-wheat flour) **I used King Arthur’s Whole Wheat Flour, not the white whole wheat
• ½ cup oil (I used avocado oil) **I used extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup warm water (heat in the microwave for 1 min) **I don’t microwave if I can avoid it, so I just heated on the stove.

Instructions

1. In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer set with a dough hook, pour in the flour, oil and salt. Beat with the paddle until crumbly, about 3 to 5 minutes. Scrape the sides as needed. If your hand-held mixer comes with dough hooks those can be used as well.
2. With the mixer running, gradually add the warm water and continue mixing until the dough is smooth, about 3 minutes.
3. Take out the dough and divide it into 12 equal sized pieces. I do this by making the dough into a big log shape that is about 8 – 10 inches long. Then I cut it in the middle. Then I cut each of those pieces in the middle and so on until you have 12 pieces.
4. Using the palms of your hand roll each piece into a round ball and flatten it out on a baking tray or board. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes or up to one hour.
5. Heat a cast iron skillet, griddle or 12-inch skillet over med-high heat. The pan should be fairly hot before you begin cooking the tortillas.
6. On a lightly floured board or counter top, use a rolling pin to turn each ball into a 8 to 10 inch flat circle (measure against your recipe if printed on a 8.5X11 sheet of paper). Be careful not to use more than a teaspoon or two of flour when rolling out each ball into a tortilla because too much excess flour will burn in the pan.
7. Grease the pan with a touch of oil (or ghee) and then carefully transfer each tortilla, one at a time, to the pan and cook until puffy and slightly brown, about 30 to 45 seconds per side. Set aside on a plate to cool slightly. Eat within an hour, refrigerate or freeze.

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Honey Whole Wheat Bread (recipe from my friend Brittany)

Ingredients

• 3 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 T yeast
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

I didn’t get any directions from Brittany, so I just threw it together and let it rise. It rose the the first time but not the second, and she told me later that this recipe only rises once. Good to know. Also, I mix this bread by hand because I don’t have a mixer.

1. Mix warm water with yeast and stir until yeast is dissolved. Water should be warmer than a baby’s bath but not too hot to touch. If it’s too hot you’ll kill the yeast, if it’s too cold you’ll kill the yeast. I did this last week, made it too hot, and my bread was like two bricks of hard dough because it never rose.
2. Add honey, oil, salt, and 2 cups flour. Stir in bowl with a large spoon until a dough starts to form. Then add the third cup of flour and mix until you can transfer dough to the counter. Add in the remaining 3/4 cup gradually and knead until dough is smooth and no longer sticky, about 10 minutes.
3. Shape into loaves and transfer to greased loaf pans. This makes enough for two medium sized loafs or one and a half regular sized loafs (as you can see my bread is not as tall because I divided the dough evenly between two pans instead of one regular and one mini pan). Cover with plastic and a towel and allow to rise until double in size. My loaves didn’t rise above the pan because I made 2 loaves instead of 1 1/2.
4. Bake on 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

**As you can see my bread rose to the top but not past it.