Red Berry Buckwheat Bread

You all know I’m a bread fanatic.  You see lots of piping hot loaves coming from my oven, and it all seems to work all of the time.

Let me assure you, it doesn’t!

I go through batches that with giant air bubbles (my recent white bread) or some other effect I wasn’t expecting. I’ve always fought with bread made with fresh-ground wheat flour from red wheat berries.  That’s why I usually opt for white wheat.  However, I still have some bags of red wheat that are taking up shelf space.  I thought it high time I worked out the problems.

What problems, you ask?

Small, heavy loaves and a crumbly texture are my two biggest problems.

Awhile back I used a recipe with soy lecithin, gluten flour, and lemon juice.  It made the bread soft, but my loaves were never the size I wanted. Besides, soy lecithin is a preservative, and I want to cut it out.

Last weekend I finally triumphed soft, large loaves. Here are my tips:

• Load more dough into each pan.  It simply doesn’t raise like white bread, so load a roll of dough almost the size of the pan.
• Add lemon juice.  It makes a better loaf.
• Make sure the dough is super sticky.  If it is dense or heavy as a dough, it will be 10x worse when it’s cooked.
• Mix in another type of flour (I used buckwheat) or even a cup of cornmeal.

That’s it!  If you try it out, let me know if these tips helped!