Baking Bread

One of the first things that I took out of the store or started doing for my family was baking bread. I started looking at the list of ingredients on the packaging and realized it was not necessary. After looking in my favorite cookbook I realized that bread really only needed about 7 (yes only 7) ingredients. So I took control so to speak and decided to make it myself. OK here is a bit of a confession I LOVE to bake as well as work with yeast. It is a bit of a challenge but fun and rewarding. That and I figure over the course of a year I have saved a little over $400 off of our grocery bill! It has gotten to the point I don't like the store bought bread any longer. I much prefer the taste, texture and smell of my own bread and luckily so does my family.

I usually make bread at least once a week, sometimes twice. In the summer we use more as we are making more sandwiches. It is actually pretty easy to do the one thing is you need to make sure that you have time where you will at least be close to home to keep an eye on things.

I invested in a stand mixer a little more than a year ago and love it. You will see a lot of my buddy as it has proven to be a very versatile piece of equipment. I start off putting all of my wet ingredients together that need to be heated before they go into the flour into a small saucepan on the stove while this is heating to 120-125 degrees. It is easy to tell when you get to this temp because the butter will be ALMOST melted.

I put the flour and yeast into the stand mixer. According to my stand-mixers book I put all but the last two cups of flour into the bowl.

Then I add the heated liquid slowly into the flour and let the machine stir it for a minute and then slowly add the two cups of flour. Since I make the wheat bread I usually leave out a cup of both white and wheat flour to add at the end.

After all of the flour is added I just make sure that mixer is on the correct setting and let it go. It usually takes about 5 mintues for it to be completely mixed and ready to go for its first rise.

Next I take the bowl off the stand and remove the dough hook. I take the dough out and shape it into a ball and spray the bowl with no stick spray move it to a spot in the room that won't get a draft and will stay warm. Most often on top of the stove.

I let is sit there usually for 45-90 minutes and then punch it down and cut it in half. While it is resting I get the pans ready by spraying them and then I shape the dough into loaves and put them into the pans, cover them and let them rise. This time I let rise for 30-90 minutes (the variation of times is usually due to the different seasons the bread just rises faster in the summer).

After the second rise is completed I put it in the oven and let it bake for 40 minutes at 375 degrees. While bread is simply amazing after it comes right from the oven, I have found that for slicing it needs to be completely cooled and will slice better the next day. That is why I try to bake a new batch when I see I only have a day or so of bread left.

The recipe is:

3-3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 package yeast

1 3/4 cups water
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 Tablespoon butter
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Method is described above.