A Most Excellent Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

This is my family's favorite whole wheat bread recipe -- for a bread machine. It's from "The Bread Machine Cookbook II" published by Nitty Gritty Cookbooks/Bristol Publishing. There are five in this series, as far as I know, and I have all of them. Great little books! I got mine at a used book store.

All the ingredients gathered.

This recipe is for a large loaf made in a machine taking a 4 cup flour measure. (Mine is an older model Zojirushi)

Put into machine in this order (or as your machine instructs)

1 1/2 cups water
1 1/3 tbs. vegetable oil
1/4 cup honey (raw honey is especially good but regular clover is fine)

1/2 tsp. salt
4 cups whole wheat flour (see note below)
6 tbs gluten

yeast 1 packet (or 3 tsp. if you use the jar kind)

Note: you may also use whole wheat bread flour (4 cups) but leave out the gluten. Gluten, when combined with the yeast, helps to give a higher rise so is used with flours with low gluten content.

Bake on a regular white cycle according to your machine instructions. (If you have a whole grain setting, use that. I use the white cycle and it comes out perfect!)

And approximately 4 hours later:

Mmmmm -- enjoy! Nothing better than freshly baked bread!