Springy Semolina Bread

This springy dough is great if you have little bakers-in-training whose kneading abilities are just developing:  The dough is much lighter than, say, a whole wheat dough, and it easily forms into a light ball that is fun to fold, roll and push; fold, roll and push; fold, roll and push…  And you only need to knead it for 10 minutes without risking a door stop bread.  Plus, it’s quite tasty bread that our whole family prefers over store-bought bread any day.

Semolina Bread (makes 2 loaves)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 packet dry yeast
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp coarse salt
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 1/2 cups semolina flour (durum wheat)
• 2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour (or as needed)

Directions:

• Dissolve sugar in the half cup of warm water, sprinkle in yeast, let stand for 5 minutes until foamy.
• Stir in oil and salt.
• Stir in semolina and water gradually, alternating between water and flour.
• Stir in as much whole wheat flour as you need to make a nice springy dough.
• Knead for 10 minutes, then let rise in a large, covered bowl for 1 1/2 – 2 hours, until the dough doubled in size.
• Preheat oven to 400F.
• Punch down dough, divide in half.
• Form loaves, place in greased 9×5 inch loaf pans.  You can also just put it on a baking sheet.
• Bake in the oven at for 25-30 minutes until it sounds hollow when you knock on the underside.
• Let cool and enjoy.

You may see in the picture of the sliced bread that it has this beautiful yellowish color.  This comes from the freshly ground hard white wheat I used to make these two loaves.  In fact, I ground it right before making the dough, and does it make a difference!

Anmerkung:  Semolina wird in Deutschland als Hartweizengries verkauft, und sollte im Supermarkt zu finden sein.