My Favorite Bread Recipes

Speaking of bread, Momma T (for those readers who are new to the blog, yes, Momma T. did mention bread in her comment on the post, "Not Quite a Recipe...."),  for many years I was afraid of making bread from scratch.  When we lived overseas, one of our closest neighbors used to bake bread rolls, called "pan" (pronounced, pahn) for the market, and though I never helped her bake, her house always smelled SO good.  And we always had fresh-baked bread.  She was always in the kitchen, so I thought that baking bread was a really difficult process.  And when we came back to the States, my recollections of anyone who baked bread was stories of how they "slaved away in the kitchen all day over the loaves, but all the effort was worth it for their families".  They lied.  It is not so difficult!  In fact, I wanted to bake my own bread so badly, but I was so traumatized by the stories that I had to ease into the breadmaking adventure by asking for an automatic breadmaker for Christmas to make that intermediary step!  LOL
Basic bread recipes are so easy, and so cheap, that you will wonder why you ever bought a loaf of bread.
Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt. Mix, Knead, Rest, Shape, Bake.
You have Bread.
What could be easier??

BASIC BREAD RECIPE

3 cups of bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1pkg. (2 tsp.) activated dry yeast
1-1/8 cup lukewarm water (about 110-120*F)

Mix the ingredients together in a large bowl (I prefer glass bowls)
If it is too wet and won't come away from the sides, add a little more flour (about 2 tbsp. at a time).  If it is too dry to form a ball, add about a tablespoon of water.
Take the dough out of the bowl, and put on a flat counter surface that has been liberally dusted with flour.  Knead (give it a deep-tissue massage) for about ten minutes.  the dough will become elastic and feel like Silly Putty (you remember that stuff from childhood, right?)  Return it to the bowl, and let it rise until it is twice as big as it was when you finished kneading it.  It should take about an hour and a half.
Punch it a few times to deflate it, then re-cover it and let it rise for about another hour.
Preheat the oven to 375*F.
Take the dough out of the bowl, put it on a large cookie sheet and shape it into 2 equal sized loaves.  You can make it any shape you want--round, long and skinny, oval, etc.  Make a couple of shallow scores (slice it in a couple places on the top, about 1 inch deep).
Place the loaves on the cookie sheet in the center of the preheated oven, and let cook for approximately 45 minutes.  The time will vary a little depending on what shape you have it in, but the crust should be brown and when you gently thump the loaf, it should sound a bit hollow.  Let cool completely, slice and enjoy!

Those are the basics.......

Now, there are certainly ways to make the bread taste better, and be healthier for you.   Experiment.  Be Free!  What is the worst that could happen?  It doesn't rise?  It doesn't taste good?  Oh well, try again.  The most costly thing you will have wasted is time.
When I was first learning to make bread without my breadmaker, there were slight missteps, but I never made a loaf that was inedible, and experimenting helped me to develop the recipe that I will share with you now.  It has some "expensive" ingredients in it, but it only costs me about $1.37 per loaf to make!  That is about half of what an over-processed, preservative-ridden, who-knows-when-it-was-baked loaf of bread will cost you at the store.  And it freezes very well, which is good, since you should probably slice and freeze it if you aren't going to use the whole loaf within 48 hours, because it WILL go stale and/or mold.  :-)

MARY'S MULTIGRAIN BREAD

2 cups bread flour+1 cup for adding to dough while kneading

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup coarse corn meal

1/3 cup bulgar wheat

1/3 cup flax seed (whole), and I like the dark seeds for contrast in the crumb

1/3 cup pearled barley

1 pkg. active dry yeast

1 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. honey

1 egg yolk

1 Tbsp. salted butter

2 tsp. gluten

1 egg white, plus enough water to make an eggwash

Rolled Oats to sprinkle on top of two loaves

Approx ½ cup of water (to pour into a skillet in oven for steam)

Mix corn meal, bulgar wheat, flax seed, and barley in a 2-quart pot, and add enough water to cover +2 inches.  Bring to boil on stovetop, turn down heat to simmer for about 20 minutes.  Do not leave unattended, stir often.  It should be like soupy cream of wheat (or grits, for us southerners, LOL).  If it gets too stiff, add more water (these ingredients will soak up water, and that is the idea.)

Remove from heat, and allow to cool.

Put enough oil or butter to coat a large stainless steel or glass bowl, combine the flour, cooled grain mixture, salt, honey, egg yolk, butter, gluten and yeast, and mix well.

If the mixture is too dry, use the ¼ to ½ cup of water to get it to the right consistency for turning out of the bowl and kneading, if it is too soupy, add some bread flour—these measurements vary quite a bit from loaf to loaf; I was surprised.

Turn dough out of bowl onto a well-floured surface.  This dough is typically very sticky at this stage, so don’t worry about over-flouring the surface….add as much as you need to as you knead.

Knead until the dough becomes elastic and you can shape it into a ball, usually about 5-6 minutes.  Be careful not to over-knead it.

Shape into a ball, cover and let rise until it doubles.  Be patient (I’m not).

Punch down, separate dough in half, shape into loaves (no loaf pans needed as long as you have a stone, or a cookie sheet), score the loaves diagonally with a sharp serrated knife

After shaping, let the loaves rise for approx. 40 more minutes

While the loaves are rising, put a clean, dry cast iron skillet on the bottom shelf of your oven.

Prepare an egg wash with the egg white and water.  Just before you are ready to put the loaves in the oven, brush them with the egg wash and sprinkle the top of the loaf with rolled oats—Quaker Quick Oats is what I use.

Turn on oven and preheat to 450*

Slide loaves into the oven, and pour 1/2 cup water into the cast iron skillet and immediately close the oven door to trap the steam.  Bake loaves for approx. 30 minutes

Remove loaves from oven, let cool for at least 30 minutes.  Slice and Enjoy!