I love homemade bread. As disappointed as I was over my recent bread recipe failures, I was not about to give up. I read everyone's ideas and advice and promptly started another loaf. !! :)

Angel lives not so very far from us, and her bread looks so very delicious! I tried her recipe, following it exactly except for the orange juice which I didn't have (I added a small pinch of citric acid instead).

That bread didn't fall in the oven, but it didn't really rise much either. I loved the flavor and taste (I love homemade bread!) but it tasted like, well, like how someone would probably expect homemade 100% whole wheat bread to taste.

As I was toasting the last slice, I said to Joshua, "You know, this bread isn't bad. In fact, it's really good. But it's NOT like my bread in Ohio was."

So, I kept reading and looking. I came across a blog called Cooking For Seven and was mesmerized by her photography. Oh, I really need to figure out the lighting here. I can't exactly take a plate of food to photograph out on the deck when it's raining. And I guess it rains all Spring and Fall here in Seattle, and all Winter too, except for when it's snowing. Anyway.

Cooking For Seven's whole wheat bread recipe looked really yummy, and I figured, why not? I'll be making a loaf of bread every-other-day until I get this figured out, so I might as well keep trying new recipes. :)

I followed that recipe, minus the optional ingredients, decreasing the water by a couple tablespoons and increasing the 1 tablespoon of gluten to 4 tablespoons (on the recommendation from Noah).

This is the loaf I pulled from my oven. Much more promising than any of the others. Inside, the texture was closer to what I'm looking for. I thought the bread tasted too salty though, and it was still a little dense.

I tried the recipe again today, decreasing the salt to 1 teaspoon and increasing the yeast to 2 teaspoons. I thought the resulting loaf was an improvement.

Now, I'm still trying to figure out how to get the loaf more consistent in texture/denseness from top to bottom. The top half of my slices of bread are great -- airy, light, soft. But by the bottom of the slice, it is very dense. too dense, in my opinion. And I still don't think these loaves are as high as they should be. And, there's still some sinking in the oven. (I know it didn't rise too much.)

So what would give the bread the strength to hold up a lighter texture throughout the whole loaf, even closer to the bottom? :)