Notes: We have a lot of whole wheat flour in our kitchen: some in a clear plastic container in the fridge, some in a paper bag in the fridge, another unopened bag on the pantry shelf. I wanted to try a 100% whole wheat loaf and thought this recipe would be a good place to start. The soaker was chock full of raisins while the biga felt quite greasy to me. I used buttermilk to make both. After a long fermentation period, I noticed they didn't really grow very much in size and checked the expiry date on my instant yeast: 2008-12. Oops. I continued anyway, rolling out the final dough and sprinkling it with a cinnamon sugar made with a Vietnamese cassia from Penzey's Spices. As expected, the bread didn't rise very much in the oven but the loaf still looked and smelled wonderful. It does taste a lot better a few days later. While the texture is definitely not to be mistaken for a white flour bread, I didn't mind the slight coarseness, especially with all of those jumbo raisins in every bite.
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