Tassajara Bread Recipe

As I said yesterday, I made homemade whole wheat bread yesterday. Guess what, not only did it turn out great, it tasted fabulous! My kids LOVED it. It wasn't hard to make. I can definitely see myself making this a few times a week. If you decided to try it, you can play with it a bit. My loaves weren't as big as I would have liked, but they were big enough. I think I needed more liquid, but I will make this as close to the recipe as possible another time before I change things. I tweak and change things all of the time, but when it comes to bread, I am not that comfortable with changing ingredients or amounts. This recipe made two loaves for me that had a good crumb and made great slices. Without any more chatter, here is the recipe:

1 1/2 Tbl Yeast
3 C Lukewarm Water
1/4 C Honey or molasses (I think brown sugar can be used to)
1 C Dry milk
7-8 Whole wheat flour
4 t Salt
1/3 C Oil or melted butter
Egg wash (I didn't use)

Take out a large bowl and put in yeast and water. Mix until yeast dissolves. Stir in honey or molasses and dry milk. Once the sweetener and milk are mixed in, start stirring in 4 cups of the flour. This needs to be like mud. Once the 4 cups of flour are mixed in, you need to keep stirring for 100 strokes. Put the bowl in a warm spot to allow the dough to rise, about 45 minutes. You just made a bread sponge.
After the sponge has rested and risen, it is now time to add the rest of the ingredients. Stir in the salt and oil. Once those are mixed in, you need to start adding in 3 more cups of the flour, one cup at a time. You might or might not need the extra cup of flour. I think it depends on humidity or something like that (although I am not sure). I just add enough to where the dough is just barely sticky. Once the flour is mixed in, it is time to knead it. Knead the dough for ten minutes, until it is nice and smooth. Put the dough ball in a bowl that has been coated with oil. When you put the ball in, flip it over. You are coating both sides of the dough with oil. Allow to rise until double, around 40-60 minutes. Punch down the dough and let rise again, until double in size, around 40-60 minutes.
Take dough out of bowl and separate into two equal loaves. Place your dough into bread pans that have been greased with butter or oil. Smoosh and smash the dough into the pan until it fills the entire bottom of the pan fairly evenly. Now, flip the bread over. Do this to the second piece of dough. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes to 1 hour. Supposedly if you tap your bread and it sounds hollow, it is done. I just wait until the house smells like bread and the top is starting to get brown. This took around 40 minutes. As soon as the bread is out of the oven, take out of bread pans and let cool on a rack. Once cool, slice and eat.