Funky Spiral Wheat Bread

Warm 1/2 cup honey in the microwave for about 20 seconds, until thinned. Remove from microwave and set aside to cool ever-so-slightly.

In a heavy breadbowl, combine 2 cups of the bread flour with the warm water. Stir in the warm honey and salt; incorporate for about 30 seconds.

Add the contents of the yeast packets to the mixture and mix well with a spoon. Cover the yeast mixture with plastic wrap and set aside for 10-15 minutes.

When dough has become a little bit frothy, divide it into 2 halves in separate bowls and add a (lightly) beaten egg to each bowl. Mix with a spoon as best you can. One bowl will become your white bread, and the other will become the wheat.

To the FIRST bowl, add 1-1/2 cups more bread flour and mix/knead until incorporated.

To the SECOND bowl, add 1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour and mix/knead until incorporated.

If you want a stark contrast in your swirled colors for the finished product, you can add a small amount of dark brown food coloring to the wheat dough before adding the wheat flour. Otherwise, the swirl will be more subtle.

At this point, you can use up to an additional 1/2 cup bread flour per bowl to give each loaf a pliable and non-sticky texture, that is ready for forming. Work this additional flour in a couple of tablespoons at a time to avoid using more than necessary. The longer you knead the dough, the more finely you’ll be able to slice the finished bread.

When both doughs are ready to be formed, use a butterknife to cross-cut each type of dough into two pieces. Now you have two balls of white bread dough and two balls of wheat dough.

Flour a kneading surface and heavily butter two loaf pans. For each loaf, use a rolling pin to roll out one ball of white dough and one ball of wheat dough into rectangles as large and thin as possible. Stack the 2 rectangles (in either order) and once again roll out with your rolling pin to flatten them together as much as possible.

Starting on one short side of the merged rectangular dough, begin rolling the dough over onto itself toward the other end. Go slowly to avoid trapping pockets of air inside the layers.

Repeat process for the second loaf, placing formed loaves in the buttered pans.

Butter the tops of the loaves before covering loosely with plastic wrap. Place the two loaf pans on a cookie sheet and position near a sunny windowsill or other warm place if possible and allow to rise for 30-60 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, or until crust begins to turn golden. Remove from oven, butter the loaf tops once again, but leave loaves in hot pans for at least 10-15 more minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.