Bread Day

The weather forecast was for a miserable cold rainy day followed by a typically Canadian abrupt switch to summer. The high was a mere 12C (54F) for the day I decide to bake but only two days later the forecast high was 27C (81F). I decided it was a good day to get ahead on home baked bread. This would heat our little house without using the furnace so the heat would serve two uses on a cold day. Plus making my own bread costs a small fraction of buying store bought bread.

I bake my own bread for many reason. I started when I lived in a rural community where fresh bread was hard to come by without a long trip to the grocery store. In those days I had no machine to knead the bread and it was a chore. I quit when we left the farm and I went back to work. A few years later the local kosher bakery closed up and I was given a bread maker. On top of that, hubby dearest was told to go on a no salt diet and commercial bread is very high salt. I started using the bread maker. It was perfect for a busy career woman. Set it up on a timer in the morning and at supper walk in to the smell of fresh bread. The bread maker worked very well but….

Bread makers don’t seem to bake evenly. In such a small batch the variations of any batch of bread that have to do with moisture in the flour, temperatures, yeast and so forth get really magnified. You can get a bad “batch” often enough to be annoying and to feel the bread maker is unreliable. I eventually settled on using a Kitchen Aide with a dough hook for the kneading part. I make a four loaf double batch which is far more forgiving of subtle variations compared to the one loaf bread maker. It is a lot easier to get consistently good bread. I also like to make my loaves small so hubby dearest can have a two small slices of bread with crust all around rather than one huge slice produced by the bread machine which has to be cut in half and which will fall apart far more easily. I initially began giving up the bread maker by letting the bread maker do the kneading and then moving the dough to my own bowl and pan. With the Kitchen Aide the bread maker sat idle enough I eventually gave it away.

This particular day I make four double batches of our favourite types of bread. They all ended up in the freezer to be taken out and used on one of those hot summer days when the last thing I want to do is be baking bread.

Batch one is my husband’s special favourite which I can’t stand. It is dark pumpernickel with cocoa, instant coffee and dark rye flour. We both like sesame and poppy seeds so I almost always do an egg wash and add these on the outside. (One advantage off doing four double batches is one egg was enough for all the loaves.) This bread also has a hefty dose of caraway seed. As you can see, someone stole a piece before I got these loaves into the freezer. I don’t think it was one of the dogs although they have been known to sneak a whole loaf. This is my own recipe

Dark Pumpernickel

1 ¼ water
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1/3 cup molasses
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup dark rye flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 ½ cups bread flour
3 tablespoons gluten
3 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 tablespoon caraway seed
1 tsp instant coffee
2 teaspoon bread machine or quick active dry yeast

In addition to poppy and sesame seeds I also top with oatmeal flakes and corn meal and small sprinkling of additional caraway seeds.

The second batch I made was a light rye bread. The recipe is from CooksRecipes.com originally.

Light Rye Bread
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups unbleached white bread flour
3/4 cup rye flour
2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon stone ground corn meal
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

The third batch of bread was honey, oatmeal, whole wheat bread, my own favourite.

Honey Oatmeal Whole Wheat

1 1/2 cup warm water
2 tablespoon margarine
4 cups while wheat bread flour
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoons salt
1 cup dry oatmeal flakes
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

 

And the final two loaves are the special braided Sabbath egg bread called challah.

Challah

1 1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cups unbleached white bread flour (approx you may need more or less to get the tight texture)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
3 whole eggs

I normally try to bake challah each Friday so we always have two fresh warm challah for the sabbath. Life doesn’t always cooperate so we have two pairs of emergency challah in the freezer.

All fourteen loaves (less one slice) were double wrapped and slipped into the freezer for future use. We normally use about two loaves a week so I should not have to bake bread again (except for Friday Challah) until midsummer.

There is something mystical and connected about making homemade bread. Even though I let the machine do most of the kneading I do get to handle the dough, work it my hands and feel the connection to our earth home. Baking bread becomes an exercise in philosophy, meditation and prayer. And is there anything to compare with the sweet scent of homemade bread? Homemade bread makes a house a home and sanctifies a holiday. It was a perfect way to pass a cold miserable day and prepare for summer.

Advertisement