Wheat Berry Whole Wheat Bread フィート・ベリー入りの全粒小麦粉のパン

This is another installment in the continuing saga of finding items in our freezer which are well past their “best-used-by (BUB)” date. This time it was wheat berries which had a BUB date of 2020. They smelled OK (usually we can smell rancid oil in whole and white grain flours if bad). We decide to cook it and see how it came out. On previous occasions we cooked the wheat berries several different ways but regardless of the method used we found them way too hard and chewy. Basically we didn’t like them and that was probably one reason why they languished past the BUB date in the freezer. So, this time we got aggressive in our cooking method. Using the Instant Pot, we cooked one cup of wheat berries (first toasted and then washed) with 4 cups of water under high pressure for 50 minutes, let it depressurize naturally and drained.  Amazingly they came out ok. As a matter of fact we initially thought we may have over done it and maybe they were a bit too soft but they had a much more reasonable chewy texture and firmed up as they cooled. The end result was almost 4 cups of cooked wheat berry. Next question was how we can use this? My wife looked for the bread recipes which use wheat berry and found one she wanted to try from “Bob’s Red Mill” website. The next picture shows the final product. (Note from wifey: Please observe the small piece of bread at the side of the picture with the half-moon shaped bite mark in it. While setting up the photo opportunity someone who shall remain nameless…husbandito-wa, couldn’t wait to taste the bread and took a chomp out of the end piece.)

Ingredients (makes two loaves)
1/4 cup sugar
2-1/2 cups buttermilk (the original calls for non-fat milk)
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp salt
2 eggs large, lightly-beaten
4 cups unbleached white AP Flour
1 cup cooked wheat berries*
2 tbs. instant dry yeast
1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup of toasted walnuts (optional)

*Original recipe calls for cooking 1 cup of wheat berries with 3 1/2 cup of water. As we mentioned above this will produce nearly 4 cups of cooked wheat berry. Using CCK (Common Culinary Knowledge), we decided 4 cups of cooked wheat berry was way too much. For one thing, our largest Kitchen-Aid mixer would not be able to handle 6 cups of flour and 4 cups of cooked wheat berry. So, instead, we used 1 cup of cooked wheat berry.

Directions:
Using a standing mixer fitted with a paddle, combine the sugar, whole wheat flour, and yeast. Stir in the milk. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes. Cover the bowl with a towel and let rise for 30 minutes.

Stir down the dough to deflate it (after 30 minutes, the dough did not raise much). Switch to a dough hook, stir in the, eggs, oil, salt, and 2 cups of the unbleached white flour. Keep adding flour until a smooth dough is formed. Right at the end, mix in the cooked wheat berries. Knead the dough for 7 to 10 minutes. (I was only able to knead for 7 minutes because the mixer was at the maximum amount of dough it could handle and started to overheat.) Turn the dough out onto a work surface that has been dusted with flour. Knead in the walnuts if using them. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover and let rise in a proofing box at 80F until doubled in size.

Coat two 8" loaf pans with unsalted butter.  Turn the dough out onto a work surface and cut in half. Shape each half into a loaf and place in the loaf pans. Cover and let rise 30 minutes in a proofing box at 80F while you preheat oven to 375°F.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the loaves shrink slightly from the sides of the pans and sound hollow when tapped.

Immediately remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

This is a great bread. The comments on the Bob’s Red Mill website warned that the wheat berries exposed on the surface got hard but we did not encounter too many. The bread has a light moist texture and whole wheat flavor is subtle but comes through. The wheat berries were not chewy but they did add a unique flavor which was very nice. In general, we really like this bread.