Overcoming Busy

Baking Bread

April 24, 2009 by Marci

Bread has been on my mind for a while.  I haven’t bought commercial bread from the grocery store in months.  (Have you checked out the ingredient labels?)  I strive to keep my family healthy and make good decisions regarding their food.  I just have a really hard time giving them over-processed, chemical-laden food.  It seemed an easy answer would be to bake my own bread.  That being said, the thought of baking my own bread seemed a bit daunting.  I have to cook, but baking is another story.  So, I have been going to Great Harvest Bread Company just up the road.  They grind their wheat daily and use only a few fresh ingredients to make their yummy bread.  Only problem here is that it is $5 a loaf!  I have a problem with handing over 5 bucks every week for a loaf of bread – and their bread didn’t even last a week!

Finally, I came to the realization that I needed to at least try and bake bread myself.  After all, I do have my mom’s old bread machine.  It hasn’t been used in a while, because no matter what bread I tried, it came out dry.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  I broke out the bread machine, bought some yeast and whole wheat flour and started experimenting.  About 2 weeks and 5 or 6 dry, heavy loaves later, We Are Thay Family posted that she was trying out her bread making skills as well.  I read through her recipe and her comments.  Shannon at Cyberbones posted this bread recipe for honey wheat bread.  It sounded great.  She even gave the tip of using the dough cycle on the bread machine and then baking the loaves in the oven. I gave it a try and got two awesome, soft loves of bread!  I was soooo excited!  The only problem now is that I ate 1/2 loaf myself yesterday afternoon with butter!  It was so good.  I’m not going to feel bad.  Thanks for the recipe!

Honey Wheat Bread

1 cup warm water
1 cup milk
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/2 stick butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 package active dry yeast
2 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups all purpose or bread flour, plus extra for kneading

Dissolve yeast and sugar in half cup warm water. Let sit about 15 minutes to proof. You are checking to see if the yeast is alive. It should make a lot of bubbles. If nothing happens get new yeast.

Put milk, 1/2 cup water, salt, butter and honey in a pot and heat until it is warm but not hot. You can do this in microwave too, but I always end up overheating and having to wait for it to cool. Make sure it is baby bath warm not hot before adding it to the yeast. Stir in the wheat flour and beat until smooth. Add the white flour one cup at a time until it is thick enough to knead.

Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place the dough into a large buttered bowl to rise. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel. Let rise until doubled. Will take anywhere from an hour to several hours depending on how cold your house is.

Punch down the loaf and shape into 2 loaves. I prefer freestyle round or braided loaves, but use loaf pans if you want. Let rise until doubled. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes. I brush the loaf with butter while it is still warm. Let it cool a bit before you slice or it will be to soft to slice.

Notes:
*If you have never made bread before go here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/lessons/yourfirstloaf and read through at least lesson 1 before trying to make bread.

*If you own a bread machine you can let your machine do the work for you. Make sure that your machine can handle 2 cups of liquid, if like mine it uses only 1 1/2 cups liquid, do a little math and continue. Just toss all the ingredients in the machine, set it to the dough only cycle and let it run. It will beep when the dough is done rising. Take the dough out and shape your loaves, let rise and bake.

*If you you think it needs to be sweeter add more sugar NOT more honey. Honey is a natural antifungal and will kill the yeast if you use too much.