Let's Bake Bread!

It's been decidedly wintry in northern Arizona in the days after Christmas; we awoke to 19 degrees this morning.  We have had the woodstove going pretty much non-stop lately.  (The copper scuttle was a $5 swap meet find!  I LOVE the swap meet!)

It was perfect weather for baking bread.  I enjoy baking bread, not just because it's such a thrifty thing to do, but because I love the elemental nature of creating something so sustaining to life.  No one says, "Give us this day our daily rutabagas" or "Give us this day our daily potato chips."  Of course not - it's bread, and always has been.  Whenever I bake, I feel a strong connection to all the millions of women before me through the centuries who did the same to feed their families.  

And baking your own bread is indeed a money saver.  A loaf of whole-grain bread will cost you nearly $4.00 in a supermarket, and much more at a farmer's market or artisanal bakery.  How much did it cost me?  Around a dollar a loaf - and that's because I used honey for sweetener.  Had I used sugar, the cost would have been around 85 cents!  It's a win-win all the way around:  better taste, better for you, and much cheaper. 

This recipe makes four loaves, or two loaves and two dozen rolls.  These are not dinner rolls, but a flatter version we use them for sandwiches and burgers.

With the kids out of the house, we will go through about a loaf and a half dozen rolls a week.  This way, I only need to bake about twice a month.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread or Rolls
5 c. lukewarm water
1 c. vegetable oil
1 c. honey, molasses, or sugar
7 c. whole wheat flour
7 c. white flour
3 T. + 2 tsp. dry yeast
1 c. powdered milk
1 T. + 2 tsp. salt

I buy my yeast in bulk at Costco and keep it in the freezer.  Take a look at the expiration date on this package:

 

June of 2010!  Oops.  Well, it worked marvelously, with no loss of potency. 

 

Empty your water into an oversized mixing bowl.  Sprinkle the yeast on top and let it dissolve for about five minutes or so.  Add all the other ingredients and stir well.  Add the whole wheat flour and mix.  It should look like this:

 



You have just made a sponge.  Doing so allows your bread an additional rising (three versus two), and makes for an exceptionally light loaf, always an important consideration when you're baking with whole wheat. 

Cover the sponge with plastic wrap and let it sit undisturbed for about an hour.  It should rise dramatically!  Actually, I let this rise a bit too long; it shouldn't touch the plastic.

Add five cups of white flour, mixing in as much as you can with a spoon before switching to your hands.  Knead to a rough mass in the bowl . . .

. . . . then sprinkle your counter with some of the remaining white flour, kneading in the remaining two cups.  Use more flour if you need it.  It should take about 10 minutes for the dough to become smooth and satiny (kind of like a baby's bottom).  It should no longer be sticky.

Wash out and dry your mixing bowl.  Spray it with cooking spray or lightly grease it with vegetable oil.  Place the dough in the bowl; cover with plastic wrap or a damp dish towel and let it rise another hour.  It should look like this:

 

Uncover and punch it down.  Tip the dough out onto the counter and knead it a couple of turns to remove any bubbles.  Cut the dough into four sections.  Each section will be either a loaf or a dozen rolls.  For loaves, stretch the dough into a rectangular shape.  You can use a rolling pin, but the dough is so tender that you should be able to use your hands to shape it right on the counter.

 





Fold in the sides and roll it up.  Pinch in the ends and the seam.

Put the loaf seam side down in a greased bread pan.  (I use Crisco.)  Make a fist and use your knuckles to flatten the loaf and make if fit evenly and smoothly in the pan.  I usually make a depression down the middle.  It seems to help the loaf make a pretty, rounded shape when it bakes.

Cover with the sheet of plastic wrap or towel that you used for the second rising and move the pans out of the way so that you can shape the rolls.  Adjust your oven racks so that they are both in the middle.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Using your hands to shape, make a long, narrow rectangle of dough. 

Fold the sides in, roll up and pinch the seam like you did for the loaves.  Except this time you want a long snake of dough.  Roll it around a bit with the flats of your palms to get an even shape and smooth out the seam.

Use a serrated knife to cut disks of dough about two inches wide.

Flatten and widen the disks with your fingers to about 4-5 inches.  Lay them on a greased baking sheet.

If you're doing more rolls, shape them quickly.  The loaves rises fast!  Put the rolls in your hot oven as soon as you're done shaping them.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes.  They're done when they're golden on the bottom and just starting to brown on the top.  I try to switch the pans around half-way through for even browning, but if you forget, it's no big deal.

Finished rolls:



 

Adjust your oven racks so that the loaves have room to expand in the oven (put them on the same oven rack).  They should have risen just above the tops of the pans:

Pop them in.  They should bake about 50 minutes.  The tops should be a lovely nutty brown and the bottoms should be golden.

Yum!  Homemade bread is truly one of life's greatest gustatory pleasures.

A Christmas Blessing

Yes, I know, no posts for over a month.  But I have a good excuse.  We found our homestead property!

In the year or so since we've been actively searching we must have viewed dozens of prospects.  We looked at land without a well, land with a well, manufactured homes, trailers, old houses, new houses, cargo containers and sheds.  But much like meeting your future spouse, none of them were "the one."  They either lacked something non-negotiable like acreage or included a feature we simply couldn't live with, like high-voltage power lines.

Until this property.  From the moment we pulled in the long driveway it felt like...well, home.  It had everything we were looking for and then some.  I could see my furniture in the house, our animals in the pastures.  This was it!  The only drawback that gave us pause was its location, set back off a minor highway.  But since the area itself is remote, sparsely populated and not a destination we decided it was not a significant issue.

What else?  Nearly five acres, a combination of grass pasture and a strip of pinon pine forest that borders Forest Service land at the back.  Our well is excellent; when it was drilled, water was encountered at 10 feet. (In Arizona, this is exceedingly rare.)   There is a creek across the highway, dotted with springs that flow year round.  The soil is rich.  There are outbuildings:  a greenhouse, a chicken coop, a workshop and a barn.  It has fencing, and the remains of an apple orchard.  Since the power goes out occasionally, the house is hardwired to a propane generator.

It's a gem of a property.  And the reason it was still available in a market where the triple-digit desert dwellers of Phoenix (nearly four hours away) snap up such pretty ranchettes in the pines is because it needs work.

Lots of work.  New fences.  Paint - gallons and gallons of paint.  New wiring, new carpets, new countertops, and a complete bathroom remodel.  New screens.  (Paint - did I mention paint?  And fence - acres of fence.)  There are mice in the house and rats in the barn.  The reason the orchard has disappeared is due to marauding elk.  Horses boarded over the summer have torn up the pasture.

But....it has a cold room, a room built of huge timber rounds and concrete, shelved with thick slabs of rock-hard Douglas fir from the original homestead that held the canned bounty from the garden and the orchard, sacks of potatoes and onions.  It has a long front porch that spans the house, and a back porch too.  There's a huge fireplace lined with native stone.  The place is as hushed and quiet as a cathedral.

We absolutely and completely love it.

When we were expecting our first child we were wildly thrilled...and then equally terrified.  What were doing?  How could we manage this huge responsibility?  But perhaps most importantly, how could we afford this?  So it went with this property purchase.  After all, we already own a home.  What were we thinking?

We're past that now - scaring ourselves with the import of this huge decision.  We're on a strict budget to enable us to pay two mortgages:  no more eating out, going to movies or anything, really, at all now - it all goes to the farm.  And somehow, I'll find a new teaching job; there are schools within driving distance.  Gary will transfer.  We'll make it work.

The birth of our daughter, and later, our son were the greatest blessings God ever saw fit to give us.  So too is the serendipitous acquisition of this property, which will help see us through the hard times that lie ahead.