All that zucchini in the garden! Great way to savor the flavor throughout the winter months is to shred or grate zucchini when fresh and freeze it! You can put it into lasagna, breads, sauces, and more! Here is my favorite zucchini bread recipe that I have been altering over the past few years to get it juuuust right. Hope your family loves it as much as mine!!

Meg's BEST Zucchini Bread*one loaf, 375 degrees F

  

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbls. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla
6 Tbls. melted butter

Directions:
Pre-heat oven. Combine dry ingredients, mix. Set aside. Combine wet ingredients in seperate bowl, mix. Fold the dry ingredient into the wet ingredients. Dip a paper towel into butter and wipe down the sides of a 5 x 9 loaf pan. Sprinkle flour into the pan and coat all sides. get rid of excess flour (tap into sink). Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a knive inserted into middle ALMOST comes out
clean- you will have a little residue on the knife, if it is completely clean, it is not as moist. Cool for 10 minutes, take out of pan and cool another 30 minutes. Stores well for up to 4 days- trust me, it won’t last that long. Pour a cup of coffee and ENJOY. 

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Anyone who knows me could tell you I have a serious love/hate relationship with bread.  Carbohydrates in general get a bad rap these days, with every variety of low-carb diet screaming at you from the headlines.  I’ve tried and even succeeded at many of them, but when the cravings hit it is never candy or cake on my mind.  Simple bread has always been the object of my obsession.  Rustic homemade bread, fresh out of the oven, at most dipped in a little olive oil.  There have been times on this long road to a healthy weight that I would have wrestled an alligator for a roll!  I ease my guilt by reminding myself that this is no ordinary, white flour, high-fructose corn syrup laden, flabby white bread.  THIS is bread of ancient simplicity.  Flour, yeast, water, and salt.  I take my time with it and enjoy the task.  I occasionally dress it up in different ways, sometimes boule style-sometimes loaves, sometimes with herbs.  I love the way the smell fills a house, and makes even our little condo feel lived in.  No matter what I accomplish professionally, nothing gives me a feeling of accomplishment like feeding the family with homemade bread.  In some way it makes me feel connected to history, to the women who went before me that mixed the same ingredients for the same purpose.  In tents and castles, in huts and cabins, Home is where the bread is.   

If you are new to bread making I highly recommend the book “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” by Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg.  Their recipes are simple and versatile (and delicious), and will likely become your go-to recipe as it has mine.   I’ve used the basic recipe for everything for bread bowls for soup to bagels to beignets.  Happy baking!

 

I've always been the type of person to read books with rural settings and watch old-fashioned television shows. You know the ones I mean...They were always set way back in the days and would feature Paw hitching up the wagon to go fetch Doc when someone was injured. Though the shows rarely featured anyone that looked like me, I always imagined myself living back in those times. Of course back then, the gender roles were pretty well defined and there wasn't much leeway in them. Rather than being the one going into town to fetch the Doc, I'd have likely been the one sweating over an open fire to make dinner out of whatever varmint Paw had managed to snare.

As an adult I embarked on a more self-sufficient lifestyle, trying my best to recreate some of those moments for my family. Making bread was one of those key elements that I desperately wanted to bring into our home. I mean how hard could it really be? Breadmaking has been going on since the beginning of recorded time, right? On tv, the woman of the house would start the breadmaking at the crack of dawn. It had to be easy because she likely hadn't had any coffee and was probably dozing as her hands found a familiar rhythmic kneading pattern in the dough. The family would gather around the dinner table at the end of a long, hard day of eking out a living and they'd break bread, often sharing the meal with a neighbor or a passerby.

I've found that even after more than 10 years of making bread, both by hand and with a bread machine, things still go awry. Most of my bread failures fall into two sports categories: bread that resembles a football in both size and texture & yeasty dinner rolls that resemble hockey pucks. There was that one unfortunate incident where the bread... Oh never mind...That story is just too embarrassing to share! Needless to say, I have become quite proficient at both making and breaking bread.

Over the years, I've determined that the secret to making good bread is to find one recipe and tweak it until you get it right. If you use a different recipe each time, you'll never learn what it takes to correct bad bread. There are only a few ingredients in a basic bread recipe: flour, water, yeast, oil, salt and a bit of sugar or honey.

The first bread that you'll want to experiment with is a basic white bread. Don't get caught up in the old white bread is inferior to wheat bread debate just yet. Instead, entertain the notion that any home baked white bread loaf will be infinitely superior to the plastic bagged version in your local supermarket. As a bonus it won't contain any of the ingredients that only a top chemist can pronounce. Bread making skills are honed on white bread and are perfected on wheat bread because it can be a bit tricky to make a finely grained loaf of wheat bread that doesn't damage your teeth when you bite it.

Here is my favorite white bread recipe to make two loaves:

2 packages of active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups of lukewarm water
1/2 cup of slightly warmed milk
2 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of salt
1/3 cup of cooking oil
7 1/4 cups of sifted flour 

Dissolve yeast in the water. Add sugar, milk, oil and salt. Stir mixture
gently. Add about half of the flour to make a batter. Continue to stir to
ensure that the ingredients are evenly distributed throughout. Gradually
add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Dough should not be so
sticky that it sticks to the sides of the bowl. If after adding the
remaining flour, you find that the dough is still sticky, you may add up to
an additional 1/4 cup of flour. Extra flour should only be added in small
increments and not all at once.

While still in the bowl, cover the dough with a towel or lid and allow it
to rest for 20 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Start
kneading,  after about 5 minutes it will become smooth. (Do not over
knead...This will make for a tougher bread texture.)Divide dough into two
equal portions and form each into a loaf. Place into two greased 9x5 inch
loaf pans. Let dough rise again until it has doubled in size. This can take
anywhere from an hour to an hour & a half. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and
bake for 30-35 minutes. When properly baked, bread will sound hollow when
you tap on it. Remove the loaves from the pans and allow them to cool.

To keep the crust soft, you can massage the entire loaf with a little butter. Some people may balk at this, citing the additional calories that are added. However, kneading bread is really good exercise for the arms, so those calories were likely burned and you'll have well-toned arms to show for your efforts! In this society where things are often done at the touch of a button, we sometimes forget that those pioneer women of the past got their exercise through a hardscrabble lifestyle and not a treadmill. If only we owned a butter churn, I could give up the gym membership and still have arms to rival those of First Lady Michelle Obama ...

October through December is such a busy time for us. We are very lucky to have a large family. Between our nephews, siblings, and children we have 4 birthdays in October, 1 in November, and then Thanksgiving and Christmas to celebrate. It seems like I spend the majority of my time these months in the kitchen. Lucky for me, I love to cook!

If there is one thing our family knows how to do, and do well, it is eat! Food certainly brings everyone together, and there is always plenty of it when our family celebrates. Meats, casseroles, veggies, desserts, you name it. Each woman in our immediate family is known for at least one great dish. So in the spirit of the holiday season, I’d like to share some of these treasures with you.

Regardless of the time of year or event, I guarantee there will be a broccoli casserole present! Andrew’s mother gave me the recipe after we got married. The first time my sister tried it she was hooked as well! So both sides of our family now enjoy this recipe together.

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Broccoli and Cheese Casserole 

12 oz. bag of frozen broccoli
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz. cheese whiz (or store brand cheese sauce)
1 stick of melted butter
1 cup of chopped onion
1 ½ cup minute rice
½ teaspoon each salt, pepper

Follow directions for cooking broccoli. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients in 9x13 baking dish. Mix well. Bake for 45 minutes.

    

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Corn is another staple usually found on everyone’s holiday table. Aunt Ruth shared a super easy recipe for a tasty corn dish. Just a few simple ingredients, less than 5 minutes of prep work, pop it in the oven and there you go!

Baked Corn Pudding 

1 can cream style corn
1 can whole kernel corn (drained)
2 sticks melted butter
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix

Mix all ingredients together in a casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

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Now, if you have read our previous blogs you know our family is crazy about sweet potatoes! We’ve already shared our recipes for sweet potato pie, fries, and yeast rolls. Here’s one easy and tasty recipe for sweet potatoes and apples. The beauty of this is you can adjust the amount of cinnamon and sugar to suit your own taste or your guests dietary needs. Diabetics in your crowd? Leave out the sugar and the apples will still sweeten the dish! If you do go that route, I recommend adding a dash of nutmeg and ginger to spice it up a bit. 

Sweet Potatoes and Apples 

5-7 large sweet potatoes
3 large sweet apples
1 stick of butter (sliced)
1/3 cup of brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
¼ cup orange juice

Peel and slice sweet potatoes, add to 9 x 13 baking dish. Peel and dice apples, add to baking dish and mix with potatoes. Slice butter and spread over apples and potatoes. Sprinkle brown sugar, cinnamon and orange juice over top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

  

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No holiday meal is complete without bread! Our family is also big on all sorts of breads. We eat it for breakfast, do sandwiches at lunch, dinner rolls, and dessert breads. My best friend is a German who’s family shares our love of breads. We swapped some of our favorite recipes. Hers is a delicious and fresh Lemon Braid which may appear difficult but is rather easy. Mine was a Pumpkin Bread which makes a nice sweet loaf for dessert or breakfast.

Pumpkin Bread 

5 eggs
1 ¼ cup vegetable oil
1 can solid packed pumpkin (15 oz.)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 (3oz.) packages cook and serve vanilla pudding mix
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. salt

Beat eggs. Add oil and pumpkin and beat until smooth. Combine all remaining ingredients. Gradually beat into pumpkin mixture.

Pour batter into 5 greased mini loaf pans (5 ¾ In x 3In x 2 In). Bake at 325 degrees for 50-55 minutes, or until tooth pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in pans before releasing onto wire racks.

  

Hefezopf (Lemon Yeast Braid) 

3 2/3 cup flour
3 Tsp. yeast
1 1/3 cup warm milk
1/3 cup sugar
¼ tsp. salt
7 Tablespoon butter
Grated Skin of 1 whole lemon
1 egg, for brushing on top

Add flour to a bowl, make a dent in center and add yeast. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead until the dough is firm. Dough should not be sticky, add flour to right consistency. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 15 minutes. Knead again, then divide into 6 equal parts and roll into strands. Strands should be about the thickness of a nickel. Braid together 3 strands Do this twice to form two loaves. Put onto a greased baking pan, cover with a damp cloth and let rise for 30 minutes. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk egg and brush bread tops before baking. Bake for 18-20 minutes.

  

We recently celebrated our oldest daughters 6^th birthday. My mother always bakes our kids a special cake for their birthday. The cake is always the center of our party theme, and we have done everything from Thomas the Train and Lightening McQueen (complete with donut wheels!) to Tinkerbell and Minnie Mouse. This year, Macey requested a tree frog cake. Not exactly what you would expect from a little girl. Mom rose to the occasion and made a life size replica of Macey’s bedtime buddy, “Hug A Bug.”

  

Now, Mom hasn’t shared her special recipe for chocolate cake, but I have a similar tasting recipe we use here at home. It’s sure to satisfy anyone’s coffee and chocolate craving!

Chocolate Mocha Cake 

2 Cups all purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1 cup freshly brewed coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease two 9 inch round cake pans. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, oil, eggs, buttermilk, baking powder, soda, and salt in a mixing bowl. Dissolve instant coffee in warm coffee and add to mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed until smooth. Batter will be thin, do NOT add more flour. Pour mixture into prepared pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until tooth pick comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes before turning out on wire racks to cool.

Frost with your choice of frosting. I used this recipe at Halloween to make a pumpkin cake using a bundt pan and muffin tin. By doubling the recipe I had enough to do the 2 required bundt’s to form the pumpkin, and two muffins for the stalk. I frosted it with orange tinted butter cream frosting, added green butter cream frosting for the vine, and dyed some shredded coconut green for the “grass.”

  

We sure do enjoy the holidays around here. It gives us the perfect excuse to cook! Eating all the goodies is pretty good too. Give a few of these a try, and be sure to let us know how you like them!

Get them while they're hot, hot off the press that is – more than 100 easy bread recipes that'll have you baking everything from artisan no-knead breads to bagels and sweet rolls to sourdough buns in no time. GRIT's Guide To Homemade Bread, the second title to be released in the recently launched Country Skills book series, is loaded with  easy and healthy homemade bread recipes and it looks positively delicious. Whether baking bread is your passion or you are just thinking about embarking on a bread-baking adventure, the Guide To Homemade Bread has you covered. We've included information on how to convert easy traditional bread recipes for use in bread machines and a few plans for creating easy-to-build, wood-fired, backyard bread ovens too.

 

Here at GRIT we love good breads of all kinds and so this project was a labor of love for the entire team. It didn't hurt that we got plenty of samples as we tested the recipes. We also had fun working with some excellent and affordable food stylists, photographers and bakers in the process. With a little coaxing, My Partner In Culinary Crime convinced me to carefully measure out the ingredients for my whole-wheat and cornmeal pizza crust, which I documented just for the book – this easy crust recipe will have you rejecting cardboard-crusted parlor pizza in no time. We really enjoy bringing you print products that makes sense and that make your lives more interesting and self sufficient. When it comes to the Guide To Homemade Bread, I speak for the whole team when I say that the project makes us proud.

 

The Guide To Homemade Bread also includes recipes for cornbread, soft pretzels, no-fail hamburger buns, breakfast breads, quick breads and all kinds of toppings for all kinds of breads. Plus you will find all kinds of expert advice and encouraging tips to make your bread-baking experiences successful and thoroughly enjoyable. Look for GRIT's Guide To Homemade Bread at a newsstand near you, or better yet, order yours right here and bring even more great aromas and wonderful food to your table this season.

You can do it. You can make tasty, healthy bread every week. You can be the busy mom of three or the work-10-hours-per-day dad or the away-from-home-most-the-time couple and STILL have that homemade bread on the table every night.

Let me level with you: I am a wife, a mother of two, a farmer, a freelance designer and a writer all in one day. Once I’m up, it’s GO GO GO until the sun sets. I know how it is. I get it. Having a healthy meal in and of itself is challenge enough without the laborious task of mixing and kneading bread. But last November I came across a recipe and concept that changed our dinner table forever.

One of our favorite magazines published an article about a bread recipe that one could accomplish in 5 minutes per day. Not only that, it would taste like you just came out of a New York bakery. I was skeptical, but eager to be making my family’s bread. The article was talking to the authors of a book called Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. Even though I am going to tell you about the basic techniques in this blog, I highly recommend purchasing the book to learn even more!

From the first batch of dough I made, it was a raving success! I bought the book and continued to learn for the last year. I have made a large batch of dough to last the week and I have not missed a single week (except for a two month period during our harvest season).

You can do this too! I have shared this recipe with countless friends and mothers within my sphere of influence. It is easy. It’s beyond delicious. And the ideas are really fun. Let me take you through my steps. These are little variations that I’ve found work for me and you can build off my experience.

The Basic Dough

This is a basic mix, and I do mean basic. People almost always raise their brows when I tell them the four ingredients that went into it. You can make a lot of different breads from this recipe alone. Pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, dinner buns. And of course bread loaves!

Ingredients

1.5 tablespoons dried yeast
1.5 tablespoons salt (preferably NOT table salt)
3 cups warm water
6.5 cups all-purpose flour

Mixer

I do this recipe in a stand mixer with a dough hook. This is very important to the ease and timeliness of the breadmaking. If you do not own a stand mixer, a food processor might work (have not tried it) or a hand held mixer with a dough hook. If you are serious about getting into baking in general, I highly recommend a stand mixer. I went years without one but now cannot imagine baking sans that stand!

The Water

Pour the three cups of warm water into your 5 quart capacity stand mixer bowl. If you live in an old farmhouse like me, you might want to slosh hot water around the bowl to warm it up first as it will likely have the appearance of frost coming out of the cupboard. Some people are adamant that you have to have a certain temperature in which the yeast will “awaken” and do their little yeasty dance.

Pssshaw! I haven’t used a thermometer yet, and I have never had a bread come out flat. I like to dip my thumb in there, and if it feels comfortably warm, you’re probably good to go.

The Salt

Next, I add the tablespoon and half of salt. In our house, we haven’t used table salt since ... well ... pretty much since I met Andy (the former chef). We buy rock salt, and prefer Morton’s Kosher Salt just because we use so much of it. Otherwise, we recommend sea salt, for those with a higher budget. In general, avoid table salt. Nasty stuff (whole other blog).

We like our bread a little saltier, so I actually now add 2 whole tablespoons of salt. Trust me, this won’t overpower your bread.

Put the salt in first as it has the quality of halting the yeast’s development. It will sink right to the bottom anyway.

The Yeast

It really doesn’t matter what brand of yeast you choose. All you need to know is that buying those little packets will cost you big! Even if you buy the $7-8 jar in the grocery store, it will only last you about a month (if you make bread every week like we do). I poked around online and found bulk yeast at King Arthur Flour in two pound bags (that’s a link there, by the way). I ordered four pounds last November and have half a pound left. Did you know you can freeze yeast and it will be viable for up to two years? I just froze the big bags and dumped a small amount into one of those jars to keep in the fridge. When that gets emptied, I add more from the stock in the freezer. I found that even including shipping, I was saving almost a whole dollar per loaf by purchasing this way!

Gently pour in the tablespoon and half of yeast and it will spread over the top of the warm water.

The Flour

The basic recipe calls for all-purpose flour. This is because unbleached, white flour is the most common flour for baking breads. You can use organic flour or bleached if you prefer. From a health standpoint, the least messed around with flour is the best. I use unbleached all-purpose flour as my base ingredient.

Now, I know there are those of you who are hard-core whole wheat fans. I respect that completely! And I have an answer for you ... later. This is the base recipe to get you started. From my experience in learning to be a bread maker, starting with white bread is the best way to build up your confidence. Whole wheat can be very unforgiving.

Measure the flour cup by cup with a dry measuring utensil. Scrape off the heap of flour so that it is even with the top edges of the cup. I use the back of a butter knife to accomplish a nice even line. I never used to think that packing in the flour made a difference, but it really does. A lot of extra weight is added to the dough if you don’t gently add flour to the cup. It takes a few more minutes but makes for more consistent breads.

Dump the flour into the bowl and place it back under the mixer.

Action!

Turn on the mixer at the lowest speed. It will begin to incorporate the ingredients and slow down. Then turn it up one notch and wait until the dough starts to form a ball and pick up extra flour around the edges. At this point turn off the mixer and remove the bowl. I usually have to scrape some of the dough off the hook, and Elly usually helps me. :-) This whole mixing process takes less than a minute.

Cover the bowl with lid that doesn’t seal completely. Let the dough rise for two-ish hours. It takes longer if you have a colder kitchen and less time if it’s the heat of July. It will about double in size, sometimes more.

Now you are ready to make up to two, 2-pound loaves of bread. The dough is supposed to be sticky like that. In fact, I recommend putting it in the refrigerator for an hour or so to make it more manageable.

No Kneading!

Get your baking containers ready. I use either a pizza stone for rounded, deli-style bread or bread pans for traditional dinner-style bread.

To keep it from sticking, I cover the bottom with cornmeal, flour, oatmeal or even grits! It works just as well as cooking spray and adds a unique texture to the finished bread. Another option that I really like is parchment paper. You just cut it to fit, and it can be reused over and over again. (It can also be found on the King Arthur Flour website ... or any place that sells baking equipment.)

Pull out a chunk of dough in your bare hands. It really helps to sprinkle a lot of flour over the surface of the dough and your bare hands to keep it from sticking too much. I use a simple kitchen scale to get roughly 2 pounds, but if you lack a scale, the dough will be about the size of really large grapefruit or small muskmelon.

Pull the dough together with your hands, making a rough ball and place it into a bread baking pan or onto a pizza peel. The pizza peel should be covered with cornmeal, oatmeal, etc. When the dough is ready, you simply slide the dough from the peel into your oven onto your pizza stone.

Of course, we don’t own a pizza peel. I didn’t even know what one was until I looked it up online. I found that a side-less cookie sheet works just fine in the same capacity.

Once you have the dough ball in the proper baking container, let it rest for 40-60 minutes to warm up. Or, if you did not refrigerate the dough, it is ready now!

Baking It Bread-Pan Style

Let’s say you took the bread pan route. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place a broiler tray on the lowest shelf. If you do not have a broiler tray (or didn’t know what that was, like me) you can use a brownie pan or a pie pan or any sort of oven safe dish that will hold water.

Take a serrated knife, like a bread knife and cut slashes into the top of the dough. This is not just for aesthetics; it really helps the dough rise in the oven as dough sitting out tends to get a semi-hardened outer surface. If you’ve ever seen or made bread that had an explosion out one side or the bottom, this was because the top was too hard to the bread to push up. Slashing just before it goes into the oven reduces this risk. (Super important when working with hard to rise whole wheat.)

At this point I like to sprinkle some more salt on the top. Just a personal preference and something you might want to try. Or, add another tasty topping of your choice; granola anyone?

When the oven is ready, pour a cup or more of hot water into the brownie pan, being careful not to spill or burn yourself. Then add the bread pan and close the door as quickly as you can.

Set the timer for 60 minutes. I have found that our particular oven requires 70 minutes for a light brown crust. You may prefer a really dark crust and will have to play with timing in order to find what works in your oven.

At the end of the baking time, the water should be about evaporated and your bread should be scenting up your whole house! Take it out and immediately dump it out of the bread pan to cool on a cooling rack. If it gets a little stuck, take a non-metal spatula to the sides and scoop down. The oatmeal or grits should be enough to free the bread from the bottom.

Baking It Pizza Stone Style

If you chose the pizza stone route, preheat the oven for 450 degrees and slash the dough a few times. Then slide the dough onto the stone when the oven is ready. Yes, your stone should have been in the oven as it was preheating. This will assure you an evenly crisp crust. Don’t forget the cup of hot water, and shut the door!

Set the timer for 30 minutes. Yes, half the time to wonderful tasting bread! I have found that 30 minutes is pretty dead on for getting fully cooked bread, but of course you may want a deeper crust. Feel free to play with longer times if you wish.

When the timer rings, carefully remove the bread from the stone. It is so robust, that I just grab it off the stone with an oven mitt and place it on the cooling rack.

Time to Eat!

Now is the time to be patient. You have worked hard and you are pleased with the bread. But it will really cut a lot better when it is cooled down.

But come on, fresh warm bread with butter melting on it? Ok, wait at least 10 minutes so you can hold the bread with your bare hands.

You did it! But guess what? You can do so much more now.

My Variations

Once I got this recipe down, I got a little bored. I wanted to see how far I could push it. There was a recipe for light wheat bread that called for 5.5 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat. I liked that option, but wondered how many cups of whole wheat I could do without messing up the recipe.

2 tablespoons salt
1.5 tablespoons yeast
3 cups warm water
2.5 cups whole wheat flour
4 cups all-purpose flour

Prepare the same as the basic recipe. Now you have 40% whole wheat bread for your family!

Then I got a little goofy. Try 2.5 cups of rye flour. Or 2.5 cups of OATMEAL! It works! Try any sort of baking flour in place of the all-purpose up to 2.5 cups. Anything beyond that began to affect the rise of the bread in baking. Get crazy; try corn flour. Why not?

Another fun variation is to add dried herbs to the flour just before it is mixed for an Italian bread. Oregano, rosemary, thyme, or savory are great.

Try one cup of warm milk and two cups of water.

Want more?

I almost forgot to tell you the best part! This recipe can be doubled or quadrupled with ease. In fact, I triple it nearly every time I make bread. With my capacity mixer, I have to do the process three separate times, but then I dump the dough into a medium sized Tuperware container that fits in the bottom shelf of our fridge. It has a flap lid that doesn’t close tight so it’s perfect for letting several batches sit and rise and then refrigerate. (You can see it in the dough rising photo above.)

This dough can be made in bulk and then refrigerated for up to two weeks. In fact, if you let it go even one week, it starts to sour naturally. Imagine, sourdough bread without a starter and all you had to do was let it sit!

It seems like the initial process is very time consuming, but it rarely takes me longer than 20 minutes (with two kids at my feet). Then you have a whole week or two of ready-to-bake bread. You may find that your bread consumption increases, as we did. But that’s the beauty of this recipe. You are saving money in the long run and providing a healthy bread for you and your family. Plus, people love homemade bread as gifts. After trying this recipe out, you can give away six 2-pound loaves at a time and only have to spend about 40 active minutes in your kitchen!

The 100 percent whole wheat recipe is a little more complicated with ingredients, but not in doing. However, I gotta leave some of it for the book! Now, give ’er a try! Make it tonight when you get home from work and put it in the fridge overnight. Then get up an hour early and serve homemade toast to the family when they come groggily into the kitchen.

Use it. Own it. This recipe will empower you to take bread making into your own bare hands!

For the past several years I have been lucky enough to have access to not one, but two really great local bakeries, WheatFields in Lawrence, KS, and Farm To Market Bread Co. in Kansas City, MO. Their bread is everything bread should be – crusty when it’s supposed to be, chewy when that’s called for, and always full of nutrition and flavor.

This rich, satisfying, delicious experience of bread stands in stark contrast to a couple of recent encounters I’ve had with off-the-shelf breads, and the difference is both appalling and sad.

On Saturday, I attended an outdoor art fair and fundraiser for some friends’ church. The art was beautiful and the weather was perfect. When it came time for lunch, I asked careful questions about the hot dogs (Nathan’s All-Beef Kosher dogs, thank you very much) and decided they were OK to be one of my twice-yearly hot dogs (don’t get me started on hot dogs, just Google and get ready to be shocked and disgusted).  I got the dog, and was happy to see that thoughtful, intelligent people had stocked the condiments bar and knew one must have sauerkraut and brown mustard to create a decent dog.

I settled in, took a bite and couldn’t believe my taste buds. What was that in my mouth? There was the yumminess of grilled hot dog, the sharpness of sauerkraut and mustard, but what was that other ickiness?  

It was the bun. It looked like a hot dog bun. It was the color of a hot dog bun, and of the appropriate shape. But as soon as it got to the mouth, any resemblance to bread completely ceased. I don’t even know how to describe it. How do you describe a texture of something completely without texture? Or the flavor of something completely lacking in flavor? It was just … white material taking up space in my mouth.

And as I pondered this alarming “food,” I looked down at the hotdog in my hand, to see the rest of the bun literally dissolving before my very eyes. I’ve never seen a piece of bread surrender so completely and utterly to the moisture in the food it’s supposed to surround. It was like toilet paper, there one minute and dissolved the next.

This morning, to celebrate a co-worker’s birthday, I stopped by the local bagel place. Now, I’ll admit, getting a good bagel in eastern Kansas is not an easy quest in the best of times. But I’ve been to this little deli dozens of times and found the bagels at least somewhat palatable.

This morning, I got back to my office, spread a little shmear on the sesame bagel, took a bite and … patooie! I wanted to spit it out. Again, it was shaped like a bagel, smelled bagel-like and had a relatively bagel-y color. But one taste and I felt as though I had taken a big bite of a stage prop. There was no there there.

I talked with my friend, Cheryl Long, the editor over at Mother Earth News, and she says she thinks it has to do with the quality of the wheat, which is being bred now for more and more quantity with less regard for quality and the amount of protein in the wheat. “How can we get one more bushel out of this harvest?” is more the question than “What quality of wheat are we producing?” (To read more see “Industrial Farming is Giving us Less Nutritious Food.”) Sure enough, I checked my local bakeries’ websites and discovered that at least one (WheatFields) uses heirloom wheat passed down from some of the original white settlers of this area.

I honestly don’t know what else the commercial bakeries are doing that results in such a shoddy excuse for bread. Maybe it’s the quality (or lack thereof) of the yeast, or some additive they include to extend the shelf life of the baked goods. Whatever, they’re producing zombie bread, robbed of its heart and soul, and what I find saddest about the whole situation is that so many of their consumers won’t really know what they’re missing.

When it’s good, nothing is better than wholesome, flavorful fresh bread. When it’s bad, it’s awful.

What about you? Have you noticed a similar loss of quality in the bread you buy? Has this motivated you to start making your own bread? (And if so, do you take care to buy quality flour like King Arthur’s or Bob’s Red Mill? What other flours do you like?)

I think it’s time for a national bread rebellion!

I have longed for years to master the art of making bread. Like gardening it has eluded me for quite some time. I have tried numerous times to no avail. It has always seemed to make me so nervous, how to get the yeast to “bloom,” what is luke-warm water anyways, how and for how long to knead the dough, has it really doubled in size??? The questions would send my nerves into a tizzy and that is why I think I just couldn’t do it – or so I thought! I have found a recipe that has given me the courage to try again, and at last SUCCESS!

I followed the direction to a tee, using exact measurements and preciously timing my every move. I watched in amazement as my dough rose perfectly, filling the pans that held it. When the final timer signaled that the bread had completed its baking time, I cautiously opened the oven door and what to my wondering eyes should appear but two loves of perfect bread. Had I really accomplished this feat, had “I” really conquered this thing they call bread making? Indeed I had.

I had to make sure that this was not just a fluke thing, that I could actually do it again. So began the process and timing again, and the end result matched my previous success, and I have to say it was the best bread I have tasted.

I think the reason it was so tasty is because I had finally made bread that both my parents are masters at making. My mother can whip up loaves of bread without a recipe, only by look and feel. She has spent many, many nights trying to teach me. The bread was okay, but nothing like hers. I can vividly remember my father mixing up bread in a huge yellow earthenware bowl that had a blue stripe around it with the biggest wooden spoon I have ever seen. He always made the process look effortless, which it is not, it takes some strength to stir that last cup of flour in and then the kneading process is a whole new set of muscles. The smell would reach us kids all the way out in the fields and it always stopped us in our tracks. We knew what was in store for dinner and we could not wait.

So on this journey I have begun, I can now cross Bread Making off of the list. I am by no means a master, but I can most certainly put a warm loaf of bread on our dinner table. I will share the recipe because it is just too good to keep to myself!

Sixty Minute Bread

2 cups of luke-warm water
4 Tablespoons of sugar
2 Tablespoons yeast
2 Tablespoons oil
2 teaspoons salt
4 1/2 - 51/2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place water, sugar and yeast together in a bowl and let sit for 10 minutes. Stir oil and salt into yeast mixture. Add flour by 1/2 cup full until the dough forms a ball. Turn out on a floured board and knead for 5 minutes. (I actually do this in my stand mixer.) Divide the dough in half and place into greased loaf pans, set aside to rise for 30-40 minutes. Bake for 20-25 minutes, let cool, and then ENJOY!!

I hope everyone who tries this recipe has the same success I have had, because there is nothing like a piece of homemade bread.