Grandma Goodsell's Whole Wheat Bread

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So, my Grandma Goodsell is the one who instilled a love of bread making in me. I owe a lot to her guidance when I was a kid. We finally tracked down her recipe after we thought it was lost all those years ago, and I made it yesterday. I give it a 9, but that’s probably a lot of nostalgia. Either way, it is a very, very solid bread recipe. I put my changes below in bold.

Grandma Goodsell's Whole Wheat Bread

Mix 2 ½ T yeast and 1 T sugar in 1 C water, and let set for 10 minutes. I used instant yeast, so I decreased this to 5 tsp. of yeast

3 C milk

2 C water

½ C honey

½ C shortening

2 T salt

2 T molasses

5 ½ C whole wheat flour

7 ½ C white flour I also added 2 heaping spoonfuls of wheat gluten

Combine milk, honey, shortening, salt, and molasses in a saucepan and heat until shortening melts. Stir in 2 Cups cold water and combine with yeast mixture.

Pour mixture into mixing bowl and add flours one cup at a time alternating between white and wheat (1 C white, 1 C wheat, 1 C white, etc.)

Once mixed set aside and let rise 1 hour.

Punch dough down, divide into bread pans and let rise ½ hour. Bake 30-40 minutes at 325 degrees. Makes 5-6 loaves.

I let the bread rise for 45 minutes or maybe a bit more, and I baked mine at 350 for about 40 or 45 minutes. One thing to note is that you don’t want to let your warm mixture get too hot. Otherwise, you will have to add a bunch of ice cubes like I did.

Comments

  1. thejohnmfamilySeptember 23, 2016 at 1:59 PM

    I let it rise the first time for about 65 minutes, and then about 45 minutes the second time and then set the oven. This really is done at about 30 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. thejohnmfamilyJune 19, 2018 at 10:59 AM

    Lately I have been letting it rise for 60 minutes, and then at 30 minutes on the second rise I set the oven, which takes 8 minutes to preheat.

    ReplyDelete
  3. thejohnmfamilySeptember 12, 2018 at 9:49 AM

    Ok, so all summer here is what I did: I put 1 cup of milk in with the shortening, honey, salt and molasses. I put it in the microwave for 99 seconds. Then, I put the yeast with the water and sugar in a separate cup. I put a bit of wheat flour on the bottom of the Bosch, then when the hot shortening mixture was melted, I added a generous 4 cups of milk to it. Then, I added white flour until it was ready. I let it rise for 65 minutes on the first rise, then 38 minutes total on the second rise (I would preheat the oven to 350 at the 30 minute mark). Then, they baked for 30 minutes and they were great.

    ReplyDelete
  4. thejohnmfamilyNovember 24, 2018 at 2:59 PM

    So, I got a new oven, but I still bake bread in my old one. When I come to take the bread out, even though it says it is 350, the oven thermometer says it is 425, so I've been cooking mine a lot hotter than 350.

    ReplyDelete
  5. thejohnmfamilyJanuary 21, 2019 at 12:12 PM

    I bake this at 410 on my new oven.

    ReplyDelete
  6. thejohnmfamilyFebruary 20, 2019 at 11:15 AM

    In the new oven, I preheat it to 425, put the loaves in, change the temp to 405, and bake for 30 minutes. This is as close as I have found to the old one.

    ReplyDelete
  7. thejohnmfamilyDecember 18, 2019 at 5:34 PM

    I would go to 410 or 415 for 30 minutes, and increase the shortening.

    ReplyDelete
  8. thejohnmfamilyOctober 6, 2023 at 8:58 PM

    Don't do heaping TBS on the yeast.

    ReplyDelete
  9. thejohnmfamilyMay 24, 2024 at 9:14 AM

    The yeast matters. I did Saf and it worked better. I also did non bread flour and it was totally fine.

    ReplyDelete
  10. thejohnmfamilyJune 5, 2026 at 5:09 PM

    So, today was the best wheat bread, and I don't know if it was the new wheat I opened or the new Saf yeast (one of the Tbs was heaping b/c the other was scant). I did 3 cups of white bread flour and then filled the rest of the Bosch with wheat. After the liquids, it was to the top of the mixer. The dough itself looked really craggy and not smooth, but it made great bread. I filled the grain hopper more full than usual and had a bit leftover flour, maybe like 3 cups?

    ReplyDelete
  11. thejohnmfamilyJuly 19, 2026 at 12:45 PM

    Our new oven is so finicky. Today I did a normal bake at 415 (I started it preheating at the 30 minute mark). I put the bread in at the 40 minute mark, and it turned out great except one loaf was beautifully browned on top but pale on the bottom, so maybe convection for part of the time would be better?

    ReplyDelete
  12. thejohnmfamilyJuly 23, 2026 at 12:30 PM

    So, when I put the bread in like above, after 3 minutes, I changed it to be a 405 degree convection bake (you set it higher than that to get it to 4050. It was too hot and the bread is overdone. I would try the normal 415 for 20 minutes, and then a convection bake at 415 (it will heat lower than this) for another 10

    ReplyDelete

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