New Simple Bread Recipe

It was another cold day here.

I decided to try a much touted bread recipe from the Cooking Forum. It was attributed to Annie1992 on the forum. We liked it very much. If you are looking for a finely textured bread more like store-bought (Ilene, I am thinking of your husband here), you might give this one a try.

3 cups all-purpose flour (I used bread flour)
3 cups whole wheat (I had some Prairie Gold White Wheat flour)
2 packages yeast
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup honey (I was out so used raw sugar instead)
1/4 cup butter
1 egg

2 loaves of bread

I use my KA mixer so here was my routine. I heated the water and milk, sugar or honey and butter to around 105-110°. Poured into the mixer bowl, added the yeast to dissolve along with the egg. Mix to blend the egg and yeast into the liquids.

While this was heating, I added the measured flours into a large bowl and mixed.

To the bowl of liquids, add enough of the flours along with the salt to make a thick batter and beat a minute with the regular flat beater. I think this gets the gluten working. Then I changed to the dough hook and slowly added the rest of the flour mix. You can let the mixer do the job of kneading or you can dump out on floured board and do it by hand. I sort of do half and half. I like to finish the kneading by hand to get the 'feel' of the dough. You can't over knead.

Place in greased bowl (I just use the mixer bowl without washing by pouring a little olive oil and spreading it around with a paper towel). turn dough to oil the top or just pat with the paper towel. Cover with damp cloth and let raise until doubled in size. It took over an hour in my cool kitchen yesterday. Punch down; divide in half; form into loaves and place in greased pans and let raise the second time. This went much quicker, not an hour. By now I had the oven preheating so the kitchen was much warmer.

Note: I added a little ascorbic acid to the batter and 1/2 cup of oat bran hot cereal for more fiber but no other enhancers since I was using bread flour which is higher gluten.

I will be toasting a slice shortly to see how that does.

This may become my regular bread recipe.

From Food

I have been reading seed catalogs. Lots of fun, but still plan to cut way back this year.