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This is a recipe and method adapted from one of the recipes in Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

Making good whole wheat bread is quite different than making white bread. Technically, you can follow a similar method as when making white bread if you want. You will end up with bread. But the texture will not be beautiful and the flavour will be flat. Whole wheat bread needs love. It also needs time. This recipe takes a minimum of 11 hours from start to finish.

Though it requires patience, you will find that it is worth it! I have never tasted such a delicious whole wheat bread in my life and doubt anything can top it. It is rich, dense, moist, and the flavour is so complex, yet not overbearing in any way. This is absolutely perfect bread for any application you would normally use whole wheat sandwich bread for and more.

You can also shape this dough in any way you want. So you can make rolls, baguettes, garlic knots, or whatever possible shape of bread you want! Eventually I will post more bread shaping articles for which you can use either my white bread dough or this dough, but you don’t really need to wait for me. Go ahead and experiment!

This recipe will yield one loaf of bread. Depending on how thickly you cut the slices you should get around 10 to 12 slices of bread from the loaf.

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If you are anything like me, you love chocolate. For chocolate lovers, one of the best staples to have is chocolate syrup! You can put it in or on just about anything to whip up a chocolatey treat. If you are anything like me, you also like to use as little mass produced, prepared foods as is sanely possible, and therefor, the idea of a store bought bottle of chocolate syrup doesn’t exactly excite you.

Well, I have great news! Chocolate syrup is ridiculously easy and quick to make. You can have the peace of mind of knowing exactly what is in your occasional sweet treat because you put it there yourself. While this does not turn it into a health food, it does provide you with an option other than mysterious factory produced chemical soup (especially one that usually included HFCS ew!), and also gives you more freedom to create the flavour and texture you like best!

This recipe yields approximately two cups of chocolate syrup.

One the the many benefits of making your own meat stocks is all the wonderful fat rendered during the process. A lot of people make the mistake of discarding the fat, thinking that it is unhealthy  and that there is no use for it anyway. This is a big mistake. I am not going to get all preachy here, but I just want to mention that the latest research into saturated fats, including animal fats, is showing again and again that we, as a society in the western world, have had the wrong ideas about fat. This, some speculate, may even help explain the growing obesity problems in the world. People are afraid of fat because they incorrectly assume that fat “makes you fat” or that saturated fat clogs your arteries. The truth, it seems, is that saturated fats are not the enemy. In fact eating saturated fats seems to help maintain good cholesterol counts if consumed as a part of a healthy diet, especially if that diet is not high in sugar and other carbohydrates. Okay, I am not going to go into any more detail on that subject right now, because this is a “how to” post, not a diet advice post. I just really wanted to say these things because I think that animal fat is so important not only for health, but in cooking in general. It is the best thing for sauteing anything. If you have enough, you can also use it to deep fry, and you will have the best results you have ever had. Just make some eggs with rendered fat and you will wonder how you ever did without. Also, if you use cast iron skillets, nothing seasons them better. Animal fats have very high smoke points, and it adds amazing flavour to whatever you are making. I used to use olive oil for most of my sauteing. No more. Now it is usually either rendered animal fat, coconut oil, or butter.

Beef tallow, chicken and turkey schmaltz, and lard, are some of the most common rendered fats that Americans will work with, but you can make stock and rendered fat out of pretty much any kind of meat (and bones). No matter what you are using, the process is more or less the same. If desired, roast the bones or carcass, or otherwise put the raw bones, carcass, and optional meat into a stock pot, add aromatic vegetables, if desired, simmer for anywhere from 6 to 24 hours, strain the stock, and let it cool. Here you will find all of my stock recipes and you can check those out if you would like more detailed instructions. Once you have completed these steps, you can go onto to the following steps to clean that fat and prepare it for use.