bulgur wheat bread

let me start out by saying that bulgur is not cracked wheat.  same grain but two completely different products.  bulgur is a partially cooked whole grain wheat that is cut to various sizes while cracked wheat is simply that, uncooked, whole wheat grains that are cracked into pieces.  they are also not necessarily interchangeable in recipes.  something i learned the hard way recently!

every now and then, i get a wild hair and try to make something with a recipe i found on pinterest.  yes, a crap shoot has better odds but sometimes, you just gotta live life on the edge and this is about as risky as i like it.  a recipe for cracked wheat bread popped up in my feed and i thought, well why not try it out?  no cracked wheat in the pantry but there is plenty of bulgur, what is the worst thing that could happen???

for starters, the bulgur soaked up the water like a sponge!  if i were to ever make this again, i would definitely add at least an extra half cup of water to the dough along with the cooked bulgur.  because i did not do that, i used only half of the flour that the recipe called for and the resulting loaf was a little smaller and a little denser than it should have been.

the dough rose quickly.

it was easy to work with-it shaped nicely.

ready to rise.  before baking, i gave it a coat of egg white wash and a generous sprinkle of sesame seeds.  a nice deep slash to the center was the final touch before baking.

  

out of the oven and ready for a close up view

the bread was a little denser due to the reduced amount of moisture but that did not matter much.  it made lovely toast and really tasty grilled cheese sandwiches!

nothing quite like a slice of fresh baked bread with a slathering of butter and a sprinkle of salt.

to see the recipe, head over to the blog, girl versus dough and bake up a loaf.  remember, if you do not have cracked wheat, you can use bulgur but you will need only half of the flour called for in the recipe or you can add additional water, about 1/2 a cup to the dough and add flour as needed.