Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Who Knew Bread Came From Grain

Some of you know that we make our own bread [most weeks]. I'd like to take credit for this, but to be honest The Pilgrim [aka Charles] was making it when I met him. So here's what he taught me.

What you'll need:
-Something to mill grain with [hand mill/electric mill/or already milled flour] 
-Bread maker [or oven with bread pan]
-Measuring cups
-Grain
-Water
-Olive Oil
-Honey
-Salt
-Lecithin
-Gluten [optional]
-Yeast


We buy our stuff at a local store.
This is the recipe we follow.

This is what happens when they help

 Organic Hard Red Wheat Grain
$35 for 45 lbs

3 cups of grain=4.5 cups of flour

[5 years and counting]

"What? I didn't touch it, I promise"

It takes about 30 seconds for 3 cups

1.5 cups hot water first into bread maker pan

1/2 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

We love our honey bear

1/4 cup of honey
[comes out easiest if you put in same measuring cup oil just came out of]

Pour 4.5 cups of flour into a high pile

Don't worry if a little of this happens with the kids

2 tsp Salt
[VERY important to make sure your measurements of the dry are exact, especially the salt & yeast...bread is very fickle]

Add remaining dry ingredients
2 tbsp Lecithin
1 tsp Gluten
[keep dry on dry]

Make a well with your tablespoon

1 tbsp of Yeast
[store in freezer]

This is a picture of what NOT to do
Try to keep yeast in the little well you made

[ours has been with us on several trips over the last 5 years hence the dents]

We adjusted our setting from 2:45 to 2:38 because it worked best for us
[varies by house temperatures & seasons]
[told you bread was fickle]

2 hours and 38 minutes later

See the little old ladies face?






High in healthy fiber...it'll keep you regular ; )


Enjoy bread that lasts only a few days because it has real ingredients
[if you don't eat it all before then]

Some weeks we make it more than others. Ideally we'd make it daily. The only thing that holds me back is the 10 minutes of alone time in the kitchen or the mess when the kids help. 

Saves money. You can make about 32 loaves with the $35 bucket.

Tastes amazing with honey. 

It's high in fat [10g] & calories [240] , but it's real. 

Great article on why you should make your own bread.

8 comments:

  1. LIke the step by step. Maybe one day we will be as cool as you and make our own bread.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, I found you through Naomi's blog. I love your posts. :) I'm considering starting to make my own bread. Do you have any idea how much bread machines run in price?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks LivingABonafideLife, you won't regret it. To start you can just buy some inexpensive bread pans and bake it in your oven, you can do this a few loafs at a time as well. My bread maker that I mention above [click on it to see it in amazon.com] is around $240, but it's a great machine that can make dough & bread. It's lasted us years too. I know goodwill often has them, but they usually are smaller. You might check with your friends, sometimes people got them as wedding gifts and never opened them!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the bread machine blog and will always remember the days when charles would bring us bread in college and we could eat the bread of his labor!!!! Since that was pre machine... right?? and then once you guys went and got hitched on me I had to beg and plead for my own machine for Christmas!! Love seeing pics of the boys helping and the non-brain bread!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love making bread. For Italian night, try this.

    in your bread maker combine:
    1 cup warm water
    1 Tablespoon olive oil
    1 egg
    7 Tablespoon sugar (honey would probably work)
    3 1/2 cups flour
    2 teaspoons yeast

    set on dough setting (1 1/2 hours)
    form 2 long loaves (snakes, my kids call them)
    Let rise a minimum of 20 minutes. I like about 45 minutes for large loaves.

    Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. awesome! go mama in the kitchen and taking pictures! I LOVE homemade bread. Knead to get back into it. no seriously.

    Courtney (not Josh) just too lazy to sign out of his acct.

    ReplyDelete
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