Soft and Delicious 2-hour Wheat Bread

Here is the bread recipe I promised Deb. I have made it many, many times and it is consistently good and soft ( not even I could mess it up). It makes about 4 loaves and freezes well. I used to make it entirely by hand, but a heavy duty mixer with a bread hook would probably speed things up a bit.

5 C warm water
2 T yeast
1/3 C honey
1/3 C potato flakes ( go food storage!)
1/3 C oil
2 eggs
1 T salt
4 C whole wheat flour
6-7 C Bread or All purpose Flour

Dissolve yeast per pkg instructions. Make a sponge using all ingredients ( preferably in order down to and including whole wheat flour and about 2 C other flour. Mix well. Let rest about 10 minutes. Add remaining flour gradually as needed to make a soft dough. Knead on floured surface. At this point the recipe says to cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double. I would usually put it in a large preheated* ceramic bowl, pour a little olive ( or other) oil in and turn 'til all is moistened with oil and let rise there, loosely covering with plastic wrap or tea towel. It just raises a little quicker that way. Punch down and then shape into 4 loaves: place in 4 greased bread pans. cover and let rise again until double.

Bake at 350' for 30-40 minutes. Put hot bread on a towel and thoroughly cover with towels for a nice soft crust. Be sure to have it completely cooled before freezing.

*fill the ceramic bowl with very hot water after making the sponge. Drain and dry before putting bread dough in to rise.