Honey Gold Bread

By DWatkins23

My father made this recipe regularly. It's really good and best when consumed directly from oven with butter.

Ingredients

• 3 cups Basic Sourdough Starter
• 2 c milk
• 2 T butter
• 1/4 c Honey
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 2 c whole wheat flour
• 1/4 c Wheat Germ
• 2 T sugar
• 2 t salt
• 2 t baking soda
• 4 c white four

Preparation

Step 1

Scald milk; stir in butter and honey, then allow to cool until lukewarm. Add yeast and stir until dissolved. Add starter and mix. Add 2 c Whole Wheat flour and wheat germ, stirring until well mixed. Blend Sugar, salt and soda until smooth; Sprinkle over top of dough and stir in gently. Set dough in a warm spot (oven warmed to 140-170 works well), cover with cloth and let rise for 30 minutes. Stir down and add remaining flour until dough is too stiff to stir with a spoon. Turn out on floured board and begin to knead with the hands. (NOTE: Flour required may vary from quantity indicated – one must gauge the dough… Too little is better than too much which will make the bread heavy). Work in remaining flour kneading with heels of hands until dough is light and satiny to the touch. Do NOT knead too long or include too much flour. Break down into sections, flour lightly, fold over and seal. Place in greased bread pans, pans should be half full. Grease tops with butter and set in warm place and let double in bulk. Meanwhile preheat oven to 400 degrees. When loaves have risen, bake in preheated oven 20 minutes… Reduce temperature to 325 and continue baking until bread shrinks from side of pans. When baked, loaves will give a hollow sound when thumped on top. Remove from oven and turn out on rack or towel on table.

Keep at least one cup of the basic sourdough starter and renew with a mix flour and warm water (2 Cups flour to 1 ¼ c flour)… Mix together. let stand out in a warm place for a couple days until it is smooth and smells sour. Starter should be mixed with wooden spoon. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.

BREAD MACHINE: You can do this in a bread machine… If you cut the recipe in half it works reasonably well for machines that expect bread recipes with 3 c flour.