Here’s the bread recipe I am currently using.

Soak 4 cups whole wheat (or spelt) flour in 1 cup buttermilk, yoghurt, cultured milk, or whey. Cover and let stand for 12-24 hours.

Add the following:

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons honey or other natural sweetener

2 teaspoons yeast

2/3 cup water

(You could also add a tablespoon of butter or olive oil. I usually don’t but occasionally do. Lately, I’ve been replacing a 2-4 tablespoons of flour for the same amount of flax seed meal. Also, I sometimes substitute a cup of rolled oats for 1 cup of whole wheat flour, which makes for a really soft bread – sometimes almost too soft to cut very well – but a treat for hot buttered bread or thick French toast.)

I mix all the ingredients together and then let my bread machine do the mixing and kneading for me on the dough cycle. (Since this is not a bread machine recipe, I don’t let the machine bake the bread. The times I have tried it, the loaf has turned out short due to a different rising time needed for this soaked wheat recipe.)

I then put the dough in a greased loaf pan, let it rise 20-40 minutes (depending on the temperature in the house) until the dough is nicely rounded above the top of the pan. Then I place the pan in a cold oven, turn the temp to 350 degrees and let it finish rising and baking there for 32-38 minutes, depending on how brown a crust I want.

Though this method requires several steps, they are all small steps that can be done in less than 5 minutes at a time. At this point it is part of my at-home routine, and I set my kitchen timer to remind me when I need to tend the bread process.