Healthy Whole Wheat Carrot Bread Loaf|Bread For Lockdown|Quarantine Bread Baking🍞🍞🍞

Whole wheat carrot bread by Poolish technique

This loaf is loaded with the goodness of carrot 🥕🥕🥕.

My version of the carrot bread loaf…A delight to the taste buds in lockdown time. A loaf with the slight taste of fresh carrot is a great way to start the quarantine mornings. Hope you all are doing great in this lockdown period. Am enjoying my days by baking lot of stuff. Carrot bread is one of them. So, why I decided to bake this carrot cake ? Here is the little story behind this. My man went to the market in hunt of some veggies & he grabbed few orange carrots and asked me to make some tasty salad out of it as he is fond of varieties of salads …. Huge fan of raw veggies. And I thought why always eat raw veggies in the form of salads…. Why not to add in breads and cakes?? So, this way the thought of carrot bread loaf came into my senses.

delicious carrot bread loaf

Baking a bread loaf is like a stress buster to me, it gives me a lot of joy. Home baked breads are so delicious and you can add many flavors and taste to it. As, I had been having many failures and successful attempts of baking bread loaves. I have made many bread loaves using different flours, combinations of flours but this time I thought to give a try to 100% whole wheat carrot bread. This was my first 100% whole wheat carrot bread experiment and it came out really great though it was slightly dense but I am happy that I tried and gave efforts, I couldn’t ask for anything more in a whole-wheat bread. But when it comes to whole wheat bread, the whole thought becomes challenging because it’s not easy to play with whole wheat😃

Homemade bread baking allowed me to stop buying outside breads. I love everything about the bread baking like the melted butter, warm water, milled flour or chakki ka aata, yeast and everything. All these ingredients are easily available everywhere.

Sometimes WWF doesn’t work the way you want it to. Sometimes the final outcome comes out with dense and crumbly texture. wholewheat loaves end up so dense because wholewheat flour has very little gluten as compared to white all-purpose flour. Because of less amount of gluten bread tends to end up dense.

Here is my 100% whole wheat bread loaf, which you were looking for.

What is poolish technique

Poolish is a preferment process in which we use equal amount of flour and water and a little bit of yeast, and we let the dough ferment overnight. It’s a quite wet mixture of flour and water.

Tip: Make the poolish a day prior (at night). Leave it for overnight. But here in my recipe I have added little more water to the pre-ferment and left it in my kitchen top for around 8-10 hours.

Next day morning start making your final dough. This method effectively brings out more flavor, needs less amount of yeast and gives good bread loaf.

Here is my 100% whole wheat bread loaf, which you were looking for.

For poolish method

100 gm of whole wheat flour

120 ml normal water

1/4th tsp instant yeast

poolish or preferment

This pre-ferment will basically go to the final dough.

For making final bread loaf

325 gm Wheat flour

1 tbsp rock salt or normal salt

1 tbsp milk powder

1 tbsp Palm sugar (as a sweetener)

1 tsp Instant yeast

sesame seeds

3-4 tbsp butter or oil

Lukewarm water as required (120-130 ml)

Grated carrot (2-3 medium sized)

Here I have used 100% whole wheat flour; my bread loaf came out medium size with slightly dense textured. Replace the wheat flour with all-purpose flour (Maida) if you are looking for high, tall and similar to store bought one.

1. Add all the dry ingredients in a bowl or in a stand mixer.

all dry ingredients

2. Mix everything very well.

3. Add the pre-ferment into this.

preferment + dry ingredients

4. Mix well.

5. Add grated carrot and water and form a rough dough.

everything in flour

6. Grated carrot can release water so add water little by little, NOT in one go.

7. After mixing everything into a rough dough, take the dough on the kitchen platform, dust the surface with flour and start kneading.

beautiful orange grated carrot

8. Knead it for 15 minutes until it bounces back or turns into a smooth ball.

well kneaded firm dough

9. Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover it with kitchen a towel. Keep this bowl in the warm place like inside the oven for first proofing.

cover with clothe...placed in a greased bowl

10. Once it doubles in size, take the dough out from the bowl and punch it down to remove the air.

just doubled after first rise

11. Knead it for another 5 minutes.

12. Roll the dough into a rectangular shape with a rolling pin.

flat loaf is laid on the mat

13. Roll the dough from one end to the other, shape it like a log. Seal the edges and both the ends so that it won’t open up during baking.

dough log.....nicely sealed

14. Place the dough in a greased bread tin for second rise or proof for 1hour.

ready to rise again... for second proof

15. Season the bread loaf with seasonings like sesame seeds. Apply melted butter.

seasoned with black & white sesame seeds

16. In preheated oven, bake the bread log at 180 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes or till you get the golden-brown crust.

just baked....out of the oven

17. Apply melted butter on top.

greased with butter on top

18. Remove the bread from the oven and apply butter on top. Let it cool down completely on a wire rack before slicing.

pretty slices

Tips & tricks for making a perfect loaf

1. Kneading can be quite tough and challenging for newbies. So, before kneading, dust the counter or work area with wheat flour.

2. Because of wheat, dough becomes stretchy and gluey. So, don’t give up, keep greasing the palm and knead the dough. Gradually you will notice that dough is playing according to you, completely in control.

3. Now when to stop kneading? When you press the dough with finger, it should bounce back, at this stage stop kneading.

4. How to store the bread loaf? The bread can be cling wrapped & stored in fridge for 4-5 days.

5. If you keep the fully done bread loaf in the bread tin for longer time, it gets soggy.

"Temperature may vary in different ovens in making breads. Follow the recipe and make the needful adjustments on time and temperature according to your oven because different ovens work differently."

Just give it a try and do not be discouraged if your loaf doesn’t come out as per your Expectations. Bread baking is all about practice, passions kneading technique. I would suggest you to watch some videos before baking a whole-wheat bread. Kneading plays an important role in bread baking. The more you practice the more you get better at it. So, just keep practicing as we all know Practice makes a man perfect.

pan-toasted butter sandwich

Now, you can make your own bread at home. Enjoy this wheat flour carrot bread with friends & family.

have your carrot sandwich with cheese

Let me know if you make this recipe! I’d love to hear what you think about this recipe.

My blog link for more delicious recipes joyfulbakingblog.blogspot.com