Rose Levy Beranbaum’s 100% Whole Wheat Epiphany Loaf

I love being able to bake something completely healthy that is also entirely delicious. Despite being 100% whole wheat, the texture of this loaf is fairly light, quite moist, and not at all mealy or gritty like some whole wheat breads. It's a very full-flavored bread, and great on its own, but even better with cheese.

Ingredients: I used La Tourangelle walnut oil, which intensifies the walnut flavor of this bread. But I think it would still be great with a neutral oil, as the chopped walnuts give plenty of flavor. Even though I wasn't crazy about the smell of the freshly ground wheat and I'm not a big fan of honey, I still loved the flavor of the finished bread.

Grinding the flour: I used a heavy-duty blender to grind the fresh wheat berries, which seemed to work well. The only issue I had is that my sponge was quite liquid-y, which I think was due to the blender not grinding the flour as finely as a grain mill, but the bread was still excellent. My food processor wasn't able to grind the wheat berries into flour.

Rising: More important than the sponge consistency is the practice of limiting the rises to 1.5x. The first time I made this bread the second rise went to double, and it wasn't as light as the second time I made it, when I watched the rises more carefully.

The first and second photos are the full recipe, which makes a large sandwich-style loaf. The third photo is a half recipe shaped into a long baguette, which measured 16" x 4 3/8".

Highly recommended.