The Brick Maker:Homemade Bread Adventure of the Day

Last month I attempted to make my own bread in hopes of producing an all whole wheat, no refined sugar alternative to the expensive stuff for all you gluten eaters. I got all the stuff I needed and put it in the bread maker I found at an estate sale for $2. I have no idea what I did wrong, but I am pretty sure I discovered an alternative to concrete that will make the National Association of Wheat Growers reconsider their place of prominance in the Food Guide Pyramid.

Yesterday, my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, Ariel, mentioned that because she had decided to not eat refined sugar for the next school term the bread in her house wasn't edible anymore. I decided that I could try again to make some good bread. We both are poor college students and we can't afford what the store has to offer.
So we began. First we tried both an oat bran/nut bread in the bread maker. Who makes the bread makers? I would like to have a word with them. The timer and the menu are useless. Whatever setting it is one is what it is doing and there is nothing you can do about it. So we put all the ingredients in and as we looked at the unstirred mess with wheat floaties in the liquid ingredients. We had little hope for this batch.
We then started a batch for the oven with a plain whole wheat recipe. This took forever. And then ever. We just kept waiting for it to rise. When it finally rose we forgot what to do with it and when we re-kneaded the dough we forgot to put it in the bakeware. Instead we let it rise again in the stiring bowl and by the time the whole process was done it was time for me to go to bed. This morning I woke up to this delightful smell wafting from my bread maker. Our first batch turned out to be a perfectly fluffy and yummy bread.
Pleased with our success, I pulled the other dough out, into the pan it glooped and plucked in the oven it was. My enthusiasm should not have been so high; bread is a picky thing and we had missed a step. I have to say though, there is something to this wheat-brick idea. I couldn't even cut this newly made rock from the pan. It is still soaking in water and I only have half of it out.
Oh, well. At least I know what I did wrong and I know what recipe works well.

Oat Bran Bread

Ingredients
• 1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour
• 1/4 cup oat bran
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
• ¼ pumpkin seeds