KAMUT® Bread

The first recipe I tried from the Whole Grain Breads by machine or hand book was the KAMUT® bread.

The wheat was ground:

The dough was made:

The dough was shaped into a loaf and left to rise.

It was baked.

It was tested!

My Findings:

1. I made the Sampler size and it is perfect for the two of us. I used the Norpro 8″ bread pan. I love these pans with the little bumps inside them. The bread never sticks and cooks evenly.  Even though the bread didn’t rise terribly high, which is typical of whole wheat bread, I think the mini pans I have, which are a little less than 6″ long, would have been too short. The bread is about 4″ tall and that’s great for a smaller size sandwich or piece of toast for breakfast . . just not as tall as we’re used to seeing.
2. In my research, I had read that KAMUT® was a bit sweet and nutty and we found that to be true. Both of us thought the bread tasted like something in between our normal whole wheat bread and cornbread.  Even on the finest setting with the Family Grain Mill, the flour had just a hint of the consistency of cornmeal.
3. The recipe itself was easy and straightforward. No weird ingredients, no weird steps. I kneaded it by hand since it was such a small amount for the sampler size, and the Bosch mixer does better with larger amounts instead of smaller amounts. The dough, as with all whole wheat doughs, was wet and sticky and I do not like working with that kind of dough by hand. Next time I will use the old Kitchen Aid. It will do fine for that amount of dough and I won’t have to knead the sticky dough with my hands.
4. With my usual whole wheat recipe, I find that it gets real crumbly (dry) towards the end of the 2nd day after having been cut. This morning, the third day after having cut into this bread, we had toast and finished off the loaf and I did not find it to be crumbly or dry at all.
5. I will make this recipe again and will not change anything, except I will use the mixer for kneading.

Any time I make something new, especially something different, I try to get Vince’s opinion. He’s so easy to please and he likes everything so it’s hard to really know but this morning, he said “Was this hard to make?” and that tells everything!  He wants more!