Saturday, April 2, 2011

Adventures in bread making

The last two weeks have seen me trying to implement some new bread making habits. I made 4 loaves of bread a couple of weeks back and froze them, but as Lois predicted, it just isn't the same. The bread is good to toast, that's all.

So it was back to the drawing board... I do have a bread machine, but it is old and tempremental so now I use it only for mixing and rising cycles, never to bake. I used the country white recipe from the book that came with the machine and it gives me a delicious rich white loaf. I bake two in the oven at a time. One is for lunch the other is kept for toast the next day.

If we eat bread for breakfast I don't like to serve bread again at lunch and will then do baked potatoes, rice or another carb for lunch.

This is my white loaf recipe:

Into the bread machine add 300ml milk, 1.5 t salt, 1.5 T butter, 4 cups bread flour, 2 T sugar, 1 pkt dry yeast. Set to dough cycle. When it bleeps put the dough into a loaf tin and cover, allow to rise again while the oven heats up. After about 15 minutes bake for 30 mins or less.



I then took that recipe and looked at how I could make it a really nutritious loaf of bread. My elder daughter is about to head into exams and I am mindful of the fact that she needs extra Omega 3 at the moment. The anwser came in Macadamia Nut Oil and Chia Seeds, both high in Omega 3. We use both raw on salads or the seeds on our porridge, but I used them in this bread recipe too and it was delicious.

Into my bread machine:
300ml warm distilled water
1.5 t Himilayan Crystal Salt
2 T Macadamia Nut Oil
2 cups white bread flour
2 cups freshly ground spelt flour
2 T raw honey
2 T Chia Seeds
1 pkt yeast

Set to dough cycle and cook as above when it beeps. This is superb with soups, great with egg mayo & sprouts, or simply with butter!

The second loaf also toasts well and is scrumptious with avo for lunch!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find that breads that have a high oil content tend to freeze & thaw better than other breads. However, if you want to use your normal 'frozen' loaves for sandwiches, try thawing them from frozen in a hot oven. Microwaving them or letting them defrost at room temp tends to make them a bit soggy and stale. Or at least that's what I've found.
Another alternative is to try making sour-dough loaves. Where you have your starter in the fridge, and you break off as much as you need for a loaf when you need it.
This website: http://www.farmgirlfare.com/p/recipe-index.html has some lovely bread recipes :)

Lois Evensen said...

Your bread looks wonderful! I have always just used the bread machine for the first mixing, too. It gets it going while I am doing other things in the kitchen. There is no way I could leave it in the machine to finish rising (twice) and baking because each loaf/recipe is a little different and needs different time and care.

I'll be making bread again today, too - as usual!

Hugs,
Lois

Valery said...

Hi Wendy, just came along your blog today, very interesting! I have a suggestion for you on bread making not sure you have heard of this or not but thought I would share, we have been doing this way of making bread for a couple of weeks and LOVE it! Fresh bread whenever you want
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/
it's awesome!
Valery