Papa's Bread (or rolls)

For Thursday's home economics class, we made bread!  This is my dad's recipe.  My dad made bread a lot!  He always made the rolls for any holiday.  I'm pretty sure he took his mother's recipe and added the wheat, molasses, honey, and flax seed. Don't worry, he'll correct me if I'm wrong. My mom always liked to make food healthier, so I'm sure she was behind adding all of those things, and subbing the honey and molasses for regular sugar.  

This bread is dark in color. It actually is not because of the wheat flour, because I use white wheat flour because it gives bread a little bit of a lighter texture.  It is this color because of the molasses.  My grandparents raised their own sorghum and made their own molasses. The molasses that I buy in a store now is darker than their molasses, maybe even called "black strap molasses," which they and my dad would say "isn't fit to eat." 

Don't worry, if you don't have molasses on hand, you can sub with all honey.  If you don't have honey on hand, you can sub with sugar. 

I did not have any flax seed to add either. You can leave that out.  You can make all white bread if you want with this recipe too, leave out the wheat flour.  

I'm too lazy to type up this recipe, so here it is from my cookbook, and I'll add some other notes below. 

Notes/Tips: 

As you can see, this recipe is for rolls, but we made bread. 

Don't heat the water and sweeteners very hot, just hot enough to activate the yeast. You don't want to kill the yeast. 

Before you get to the kneading part, you want to touch the dough with your finger. Does a lot of dough stick to your fingers? If so, add a little more flour.  You keep doing this until you can touch the dough and barely any dough comes off on your fingers, or none at all.  But don't over do it or it will be too dry.  

I don't knead bread by hand anymore.  I make it in my kitchen aid with a bread hook.  Once I get to the kneading part, I turn that sucker up and let it go to town for a while.  Even though kneading dough is pretty stress relieving and builds muscles, I just don't have time for that. 

Where it says raise 20 minutes - I raise until double.  For bread, you punch down, then put into two loaf pans, and raise until double again.  

It raised double the size of the first picture

It raised about double the side

I always brush my bread with butter when it comes out of the oven

I was taught to let bread cool on it's side, I tried to look up the reason why, but I din't find anything.  So, who knows?

This was a great home school lesson, because they were able to see the yeast activated, see how they rise, and eat the finished product, of course. Enjoy! 

Oatmeal Pumpkin Bread

My friend posted on her blog that she tried this recipe, and it only called for a cup of pumpkin (which all of these pumpkin recipes have called for) which I had, so I thought I would try it.  Bad idea - I ate that whole loaf you see sliced above minus two pieces... Yikes!! 

This recipe makes yummy, yummy bread!  It's a super simple recipe, quick to throw together, and no kneading necessary!  If you are afraid of making bread - try this recipe!  It has the perfect consistency and everything!!!  The pumpkin just makes it more moist you can't really taste it.  When I was making it I had to fight the urge to put in more flour so the dough wasn't so sticky...   The dough even tasted good!

Oatmeal Pumpkin Bread Recipe
Recipe from HERE

2 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 Tablespoons yeast
1/3 cup honey
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
1 cup pumpkin puree
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup rye flour (I used whole wheat flour here)
4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions

1.  The original directions say to simply stir the above ingredients together and let ‘rest’ on the counter for 2 hours.  I had to follow bread protocol and do the water and yeast first with the honey to make sure the yeast was working, then I addded the rest of the ingredients in order.  I used my kitchen aid with the paddle attachment to mix the bread.

2.  After 2 hours, it’s either ready to form into a loaf (this recipe makes 3 loaves, but they don’t have to be baked at the same time) or stick in the refrigerator. With this recipe, I usually refrigerate it, as the dough is very sticky and hard to work with if you don’t. However, if you choose to bake now, grab a ‘cantaloupe-sized’ piece of the dough, dust it with flour, shape it into a ball as you stretch the dough down around to the bottom on all sides. Place this ball in a lightly greased nonstick loaf pan. Let it ‘rest’ again. If you’re using un-refrigerated dough, rest time is only 40 minutes. If it’s refrigerated, let it rest for 2 hours.

3.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes (mine didn't take this long - 35-40 min. depending on your loaf pan size)

** I didn't put my dough in the fridge. I baked it right after it rose the 40 minutes. 

Coooking with wheat flour

Last week, I was going to go shopping, and was looking forward to getting a pretzel at Auntie Anne's in the mall. I ended up not going shopping, and came home and made my own pretzels. (Recipe HERE.)

Well, I've been trying to eat better, and so to justify eating pretzels, I thought I'd add some wheat flour to the recipe, to make it a tad bit healthier. I substituted one cup of whole wheat flour for white flour, and the pretzels were still wonderful.

I do this often to most recipes. Even in my baked goods. Even my chocolate chip cookies and brownies. Really, you can't even tell in some recipes.

I usually start off small the first time I add wheat flour to a recipe, just to see how much it changes the taste. Then, the next time I make a recipe I can adjust accordingly.

I personally prefer white whole wheat flour. It isn't quite as dense, but still the same health benefits. The only downside is it's more expensive, so if it ever goes on sale I buy a lot. But, it rarely does.

Anyway, if you haven't already, don't be afraid to try it! The only thing I haven't liked it in was crepes! It turned crepes into pancakes.

Do you have good recipes using your whole wheat flour? Feel free to share them with me!!