A bittersweet tale of bread.

Last night I made bread. The plan was to make the bread last night, wake up this morning, evaluate how I felt after two days plain wheat (i.e. without yeast), and then assuming I felt good and with that data safely tucked away, embark on my bread trial. I knew this would mean baking the bread and not eating it immediately, but for some reason I thought that would work. I'm not sure at what point I realized this was NOT going to happen on quite that time line... I think it was when I started eating the bread dough off my fingers.

Because all-purpose and bread flours typically have barley in them (I had never noticed this), and I was trying to control variables by testing only wheat PLUS yeast, I used 100% whole wheat flour. Most bread recipes call for some mix, because 100% whole wheat is heavy and grainy and kind of abrasive. Okay, so I was trying to control variables, but kind of failed. I omitted the molasses called for in the recipe (because I hadn't tested it), but I didn't have enough sunflower oil to substitute for the olive oil, so I went ahead and used the olive oil. It just seems like such a benign ingredient, right? (The recipe as at the bottom of the post.)

So, cheat number one: using olive oil. Cheat number two: the bread looked so damn good there was no way I could not eat it right then while it was hot.

At first I said I wasn't going to put butter on it, since I hadn't tested butter specifically (although I tested milk without any problems). So I poured honey all over it instead. It was incredible.
The bread turned out wonderfully soft and fluffy, although the whole grain graininess of it kind of made my tongue feel a little bit roughed up.

The honey was so good, and the bread was so steamy and hot, that cheat number three just became inevitable: I slathered butter all over it too.

So - poor experimental design, but amazing baked good that tasted like heaven. I was okay with that.

But...this morning the back of my left hand was sore when I woke up. Nothing extreme, and no sign of the infamous lump, but still enough to be noticeable and make me think, "Crap, I guess I cut out wheat again."

If I had WAITED until today to try the bread, and my hand had NOT been sore this morning, and then it had become sore only AFTER the bread, I'd have been able to say "Oh, okay, it was just the yeast" (or olive oil, I guess). However, because I couldn't wait, now I don't know if my hand is sore because of the wheat I'd been eating for two days already, or the bread I ate last night. Or the olive oil. Or, I suppose, the butter (although that seems unlikely as butter is typically less allergenic than milk). Which means that now I have to re-eliminate them all for at least five days before testing any of them again.

So, because the bread test requires you eat it for three meals for one day, I ate bread all today, loved every minute of it, and will see if my hand is still sore tomorrow. But the extra loaf is, tragically, being relegated to the freezer until such time as it seems logical to test it again.

Frustrating, sure, but not so terrible really, as I've learned to eat quite nicely without wheat by now. Still, I'm annoyed at myself for not being more precise and thorough. And there is still the nagging worry that nothing I'm eating is having any effect on anything and I'm tilting at windmills.

What really DID suck was that our TFA group leader tonight made these amazing, gooey, caramel-filled brownies that were still warm when our meeting started. Everyone got up and helped themselves. The bastards got seconds. Every time they peeled back the tinfoil the room smelled like fudgy brownie. And I sat there sipping on my tea and trying not to drool sadly. THAT'S when I think, "Is this completely bogus? Am I controlling my diet as some kind of control-freak proxy for not being able to control my symptoms? Am I going to turn into a crazy(er) hypochondriac who freaks out about everything I eat?"

PLUS the arch of my foot has been sore and a little swollen the past week; I have not been recording it or relating it to my arthritis symptoms because it's done this before when I've worn bad shoes or started running after a long hiatus (both of which I've been doing recently), and it feels like soft-tissue and not a joint. Back in Chicago I had a podiatrist make me custom orthotics for the same issue. But now I'm thinking, "Crap, what if it's somehow related and I've been ignoring it all week and thus have rendered this whole venture quite useless?" Not to mention the more obvious fact that it's aggravating because I'm trying to get back into shape and be able to run a few miles and I'm just getting into a good routine and I don't want to hurt myself MORE by overdoing it.

Sigh. So, I pray that this experience will help me in some way, and that my arthritis will, perhaps, just magically vanish forever, and I'll finish out the next three weeks of food testing and see what happens I guess. I got Dr. Mansfield's book from Amazon finally, and it's helped to reassure me that this whole idea isn't complete hokum. Still, it's a little frustrating to feel like I'm on my own trying to figure out something that might not be figurable.

100% Whole Wheat Bread - Two Loaves

2 3/4 cup hot water (just from the tap)
1/3 cup oil (olive or anything else)
1/3 cup honey
1 TB salt
7 cups whole wheat flour (max - I probably used closer to 6 1/2)
(2 TB molasses - I didn't use it, but it'd probably make it better)
2 TB dry active yeast (this was a little more than two packets)

Put the water, oil, honey, molasses and salt in a bowl and stir to mix. Add 2 cups of flour, and stir to mix. Then add the yeast (two packets, plus a pinch or two, although you could probably get away with just two packets.) Stir to mix in the yeast.

Add another 4 cups of flour. Stir it in until it starts to look like consistently sticky dough. Don't stir any more than you have to to mix it evenly. Add another 1/2 cup of flour and stir it in. Your goal is to use as little additional flour as possible to get the dough to stay in an even ball like dough, and not stick all over the sides of the bowl. I didn't use much more than 6 1/2 cups. Don't mix any more than you have to.

Once your dough looks like dough, cover it with a towel and leave it someplace warm. (I stuck it on top of the stove and pre-heated the oven early - 350). It should rise a lot (almost double) in about 30-40 minutes.

Grease your two bread pans (or one bread pan and a baking sheet for mini-loaves).

Divide up your dough into whatever pieces you're baking - half the dough is one loaf.

You don't really need to knead it, just shape each piece into a nice ball by stretching it back around itself, so all the seams wind up on the bottom of the ball and the top surface is nice and smooth and stretched.

Put the dough in your pans, and let it rise for another 30-40, or until almost doubled.

Bake at 350 for about 35 minutes, or until it's nice and golden brown on top.

When you take it out, you can rub butter over the crust to make it nice and shiny.

Eat it with massive amounts of honey. Or just with butter.