Daily Bread

Ingredients

 * 2 cups whole wheat "bread" flour
 * 2 cups unbleached white "general purpose" four
 * 1/2 teaspoon salt
 * 1 tablespoon dry baking yeast
 * 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses or honey (optional)
 * 2 tablespoons gluten flour (optional, rises much, much better)

Directions
Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the honey or molasses. Begin adding water in small amounts, kneading with your hands until a bread dough consistency (smooth, not sticky-wet) is achieved. Kneading should take approximately half an hour. Tom usually kneads until The Simpsons is over!

Form and smooth the bread into a suitable loaf shape for your bread pan. (You can make a nice round loaf on a pizza or cookie pan.) Dust the outside of the loaf with flour so it won't stick to the pan!

Place the loaf in the pan, cover the pan and let it sit in a warm spot for an hour and a half. If you kneaded it for a full half hour it should rise very nicely.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly flour the outside of the loaf once more to make sure it doesn't stick. Bake the loaf for 50 minutes.