Thursday, November 13, 2008

Baking bread

Is there anything more comforting than kneading warm bread dough? I love making bread, it makes me feel good. Baking bread tells me all is right in my world, my home, my family.
I'm in a funk today and I know that baking some bread will turn me from sad to glad in no time. Life begings to feel less complicated as I start to knead the dough, my mind clears and thoughts and ideas make their way forward.
Here is the recipe:

2 envelopes active dry yeast (4 1/2 tsps)
1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp sugar
2 cups milk
4 tbsp butter
3 tsp salt
2 cup warm water
5 cups unbleached flour
5 cups whole wheat flour
Dissolve sugar and 1/2 cup warm water in large bowl, sprinkle yeast over sugar water, let stand for approx 10 min.
Heat milk to lukewarm, stir in butter, water and surgar. Add milk mixture to yeast mixture and 4 cups of whole wheat flour, beat mixture until smooth with a wooden spoon.
Stir in remaining flour one cup at a time until mixture leaves side of bowl. Turn dough out onto floured surface and start kneading dough adding more flour as required. Dough should be elastic and no longer sticky. This should take 10 to 15 minutes.
Place dough in slightly greased bowl, cover with a tea towel and let rise in a warm draft free area until dough doubles in volume, approx 1 1/2 hours.
Punch down dough onto floured surface and cut dough into 4 equal amounts. Shape into 4 loaves. Place loaves into greased loaf pans and let rise until doubled, approx 1 hour.
Bake at 400 F on lower oven rack for 25 to 30 minutes, remove from pans. Brush crust with butter if desired.
Enjoy..






4 comments:

Powell River Books said...

I just learned how to make bread this last year. My mother is a great baker, so I never did much on my own. I don't know if you saw my old post about baking bread inside my wood stove at the cabin. It was a fun experiment A little hard to control the temperature but it worked, at least most of the time. -- Margy

http://powellriverbooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/woodstove-sourdough-wheat-bread.html

Margaret said...

I did read the post. I was so amazed with your inginuity. I had a "aha" moment at our cabing about 3 weeks ago. I wanted a cup of tea and boiled some water on the propane stove. I sat by the wood stove and the light bulb came on..keep a pot of water on top of the wood stove. So simple but..

copperthumb said...

I loved your lesson on making
I am trying to post the picture of my bread that I made the very same day!! it was started in the bread machine then left to rise on a pan,then i added some asiago cheese....then baked .mmmm.ihave a picture,,,but too many kids on the computer that i have a virus and a little too aliterate to figure it out!!:( mayby soon...cheers Iona or mayby I can't post a picture I am not sure..it took me long enough to do this!! miss Ya lots Me!!!

Anonymous said...

why the funk? Everything okay?

Niamh