Oh no, we’re going to learn how to eat bread… horrors! How fattening. We’re going to end up looking like vegan Michelin men and women.
The low carb diet people will be shouting sacrebleu from the mountain tops of their paleo caves. If you have a nodding acquaintance with the paleo diet which I’ve heard referred to as hippies on Atkins then you’ll know that grains are every often verboten and bread, well by gum, bread wasn’t eaten by our paleolithic ancestors so we can’t have it.
Anyway, it is not for me to beat up on why the paleo diet is worse than Atkins… at least not more than once a week.
This is about showing you how to make easy vegan whole wheat bread. And folks, bread is the staff of life. I love bread in all its vegan glorious manifestations. Bread is an important part of a healthy diet and the only problem with it is that it is reasonably calorically dense.
So try not to eat half the loaf as soon as it gets out of the oven.
Being calorically dense is also one of its benefits as a good vegetarian and vegan bread makes easy padkos (travel food). 2 pieces of bread with some vegan spread in it will keep your tummy happy for a few hours. 2 of those and you’ve got a whole meal.
Now everyone loves to bake bread. I love making the dough and squishing it and have my son help me. And the smell of freshly baked bread is better than any air freshener you can buy. But bread takes a bit of time usually to make and bake. Sure you can use bread makers, but I don’t have one and I like doing things the old fashioned way. Keeping life simples. I also don’t like the whole that the dough hook of bread makers puts in my bread either.
Okay, so with all this preamble behind us, here is your quick and easy vegan whole wheat bread recipe that you can also use to make vegan bread rolls as well.
This will make one large loaf for the heartiest vegan appetites out there. Oh yeah… did I say how easy it was too? 🙂
5 cups whole wheat flour
4 tsp dry yeast
pinch of salt (about 0.25 to 0.5 tsp)
1 Tbsp of oatmeal
2 and 2/3 cups of warm water
0.25 cup of molasses
Preheat your oven to 400. To get the water up to temperature test it on the inside of your wrist. If it feels warm but not hot it’s good to go. Warm water helps to activate the yeast and get it going. Hot water will kill our yeasty friends.
And yes, yeast is vegan!
Combine 1 and 1/3 of the warm water with the molasses and then add in the yeast and set it aside for around 10 minutes. Make sure that the yeast is full dissolved in the molasses water when you’re ready to pour it into the flour.
In a separate big bowl combine the flour and salt. Keep the oatmeal aside for later. Add the yeast and the rest of the warm water (1 and 1/3 cup) and stir until combined but don’t over mix. Dough should be stick at this point like a batter. Add a bit more warm water if needs be.
Pour dough into loaf pan and smooth with a wet spatula. Carelessly toss the oatmeal on the top of the dough.
Allow dough to rise in the pan until it breaches the top. Now put in the oven to bake for around 30 to 40 minutes. Bread is ready when a thin knife or long toothpick stuck into its middle comes out clean.
Take out of oven let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes on a wire rack in the loaf pan and then turn it out so its naked self can cool on the wire rack for a further 10 to 15 minutes. Now you can slice it up and eat it with abandon. Please leave some for others!