Pecan Honey Whole Wheat Loaf
(courtesy of Lara Ritchie, culinary director, Nothing To It! Culinary Center in Reno. Makes 1 loaf)
1½ teaspoons SAF yeast
1½ cups water (at about 105 degrees F)
3 tablespoons olive oil
5 tablespoons honey
3½ cups whole-wheat flour
½ cup toasted pecans, chopped
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. This dough can be mixed by hand or with an electric mixer. If doing it by hand, use a large bowl and a wooden spoon to mix; if using an electric mixer, use paddle attachment.
Combine ingredients and stir, by hand or in mixer, until dough looks shaggy. Then allow dough to rest for 20 minutes (giving flour a chance to absorb liquids).
Generously dust your work surface with flour and turn dough out of bowl. Knead it for about 10 minutes, until it’s smooth and supple. The dough will seem very wet and slack at first; just keep kneading, and eventually it’ll come together. You want this dough to be a bit tacky, but you may need to use more flour as this is a pretty wet dough.
Allow dough to rise in a greased, covered bowl for 1 hour. Dust work surface with flour and turn dough out of the bowl again. First, flatten it with your hands, then shape it into a rectangle that’s 1 inch wider than the pan it will cook in. Then roll dough into a log and place it in a lightly greased 8.5-by-4.5-inch bread pan. Cover pan with a towel or loosely cover with greased plastic wrap and allow it to rise about 1 hour, until it has risen about 2 inches over rim of pan.
Bake bread for 45 minutes, tenting it lightly with aluminum foil for the final 20 minutes of baking.
