Bread!

Yes, you aren't seeing things, I'm actually posting on my blog again! I wish I could use the excuse that the "holidays" kept me from blogging, but the truth is - I'm just not very good at remembering to post! So, here we go again...

I thought I would come back to blogging with a bread recipe from my Grandma Smith. My mom gave me the recipe back in October, and I'm not even joking when I say that we haven't bought bread since. It is so easy to make bread, and by tweaking this recipe just a little I've been able to get a yummy, slice-able wheat bread out of it.

Before my mom gave me this recipe, I had NO experience making yeast bread. NONE. Of course, I've made dinner rolls, orange rolls, etc, but never just plain BREAD. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to catch on. To me, there seem to be different types of home made bread. There's the kind with the crispy crust and soft, airy inside that is good in thick slices straight out of the oven with butter and jam on it, or good for eating with a big bowl of soup. Then, there's the kind of bread with a slightly more dense, moist texture, that can hold up to thinner slicing and sandwich making. Since I was making bread for daily use, the latter is the texture I was going for.

My Grandma Smith was Mother to 15 children. Supposedly once a week she would have a bread making day and would make 16-20 loaves to get their family through the week...maybe. :) This is the recipe she used. I'll post the original recipe, and I'll put my modifications in ( ).

4 C Milk or water, heated/warm
2T yeast dissolved in 1 Cup warm water + 1t sugar (I use 1 1/2 cups water)
1/2 C veg. oil
4 t salt (I only use 2-3, and in my opinion, it's plenty)
2/3 C sugar
5 cups whole wheat flour
5 cups all purpose flour (I end up using a little more than this, see below)
3/4 cup gluten (I found "Red Mill" brand by the flour at wal-mart, I think it might be in bulk at Winco, too)

Mix together: Warmed milk, oil, salt, and sugar.
In a seperate bowl, mix together: Flours and gluten.

Add 3 cups of flours to wet mixture, add yeast, then add remaining flour mixture. (At this phase for me, the dough is kind of sticky. I add ANOTHER 1 - 1 1/2ish cups of flour and let it knead with the dough hook in my kitchen aid mixer for an extra 30 seconds or so, just to pull it together a bit. )

Grease a LARGE bowl, turn dough over into bowl and cover with saran or a slightly damp kitchen towel.

Rise 1 or 1 1/2 hours. Punch down.

Rise another 1 or 1 1/2 hours. Punch again.

Separate into four equal parts and put into loaf pans. (Before I put them into the loaf pans, I knead them just about 10 or so more times on a well floured surface, until they are nice and smooth and dense)

Let rise until the dough is above the top of the pan. (I don't let them rise for very long, maybe 10-15 minutes - my theory is that if you don't let them rise for too long at this phase, the bread will be slightly more dense, thus holding up to slicing and sandwich making better - I'm not sure if there's any truth behind this, but it works for me!)

Bake in 375 degree oven for 30-32 mintes.

Make sure to let them cool in the pans for 10-15 minutes before taking them out. After they have completely cooled, I put three of the loaves in twist-tie bags in the freezer for later in the week. This helps keep then from drying out. Enjoy!~

Perfect, yummy bread, ready for your next sandwich! (I apologize for the poor photo quality. We haven't been able to find our camera for the past two months, so we just have our 7-8 year old digital camera that is NOT very nice!)