Homemade Bread & Crackers

While preparing for a wheat lesson for the Provident Living class I teach, I made homemade wheat bread and crackers. My recipe for wheat bread can be found here but I also posted it below. I loved the crackers and thought they tasted pretty similar to store bought wheat thins. They were really good and much easier to make than I thought they would be. I expected them to be much more labor intensive but they were rather simple and enjoyable to make.

Whole Wheat Crackers

In a bowl mix together the following ingredients:

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1/3 cup of brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

Mix together then add:

1/2 cup of milk

1/4 cup of vegetable oil

Mix together with a fork, the dough will be crumbly but should hold together when pressed into a ball. You can add a little more milk if needed, but I didn't need to when I made these. Divide into two portions for easy handling. Take one portion and put it on wax paper and put another sheet of wax paper on top. Then take a rolling pin and roll out on top of the wax paper. Roll crackers thinly about 1/16 of an inch thick.

Remove top layer of wax paper, flip dough onto ungreased cookie sheet, remove other wax paper sheet

sprinkle lightly with salt. Then with either a knife or pizza cutter cut into individual crackers and prick the top with a fork multiple times (helps to make it bake evenly). I used a ravioli cutter and a special antique rolling pin especially for crackers and breaking up oats, that's how I got the shapes in the picture.

Bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until lightly browned.
Resit the urge to cook them too long because they will get hard. You can put chicken flavored soup base powder into the dry ingredients to create "Chicken in a Basket" flavored crackers. You can also top the crackers before baking with sesame seeds, parmesan cheese, barbecue seasoning or other grains.
You can also replace up to a 1/4 of the wheat flour with other grains.

Becky's Favorite Wheat Bread

1/2 cup of lukewarm water

1 Tbs. yeast

1/2 tsp. sugar

Stir together and let proof.

In a large bowl add:

2 1/2 cups lukewarm water

1/2 Tbs. liquid lethicin

1/2 cup of honey

3 Tbs. vegetable oil

1/2 Tbs. sea salt

Stir this and add the proofed yeast.

I grind 1 cup of wheat berries then add 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. of vital wheat gluten. Add these to the bowl and add flour 2 - 3 cups and stir well. Add what you need of flour to knead. Knead for five minutes.

Let rise in a greased bowl for one hour covered in clear plastic wrap

Shape and put in two greased pans. Spray the dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise till dough is 1 1/2 inches above the rim of the pan. 

Bake in a preheated 375° oven. Bake 35 - 40 minutes then remove from pan and place on rack.