tagged: baking, bread, easy bread recipes, featured, flour, home baking, quick bread recipes, whole wheat

sweet wheat bread

Posted by Erika in Punk Rock Lunchbox, rad*kitchen

As you can see above, it’s possible that I didn’t have the most conventional childhood. 

My folks were hippies.  Not commune living hippies, free-love kinds of hippies. 

They were more the back to the land type. 

Build it yourself, make it yourself, grow it yourself  (which applied to fruits and vegetables, as well as other “agricultural” pursuits.)

Our little house in the apple orchard was a busy one; always building, or rebuilding, cooking, preserving, baking.  My folks certainly didn’t have a lot of money back then, but I never knew it. 

What on earth could money have bought that was better than the rocking horse my dad made by hand?  Or that tasted better than the bread my mom made us every week?

For many years, my mom made our bread weekly….and I loved it.  From start to finish.  I loved the smell of the proofing yeast….then the beer-like smell that the rising bread gave off.

And then the baking smell….OH!  the baking smell.

Prior to school, I thought this was the norm for everyone.  I thought everyone’s parents did these things….spent all their time sewing clothes, or making strawberry jam. 

Oh, how foolish I was.

Early on in my kindergarten year, I started to catch hell for my homemade lunches. From 5 year olds!

Pretty soon, I caught on.  Look what I was missing!  Essentials like Wonder Bread, bologna, and Cheese Puffs were out of my grasp.  And I knew it.

I went home and begged, pleaded, even cried!  And to this day I thank my mother for saying no. 

She said no to processed food then, and I’m glad to be doing the same for the DOF now.

A little over 4 months ago, I said no to store bought bread.  And we haven’t looked back. 

So if you’re near my neighborhood and you smell baking bread, you’ll know it’s me.  Investing my time in something that really matters to me and that keep us all a little bit healthier, and certainly a lot happier.

Sweet Wheat Bread

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1 heaping tablespoon agave syrup (or honey)

1 tablespoon instant yeast

1 3/4 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons soft butter

3 cups unbleached AP flour

½ cup King Arthur white whole wheat flour

½ cup oat flour

1/3 cup dried buttermilk powder

In mixer, add water, yeast and agave. 

Give a quick stir with a wire whisk and then add remaining ingredients in the above order. 

Attach dough hook and mix until incorporated, then let the mixer go for 6-8 minutes to knead bread.  Dough should be smooth and supple. 

Move to a lightly greased bowl and place in a draft-free area covered with a dish towel until dough doubles in size.

Punch down dough and divide evenly.   Press out and shape into loaves and place each piece into a lightly sprayed bread pan.  Put pans, lightly covered, back into a draft-free area until it has filled the pans, or just over.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

When bread has crested the top of the pan, move pans to the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.  Top should be golden brown.  Turn out of bread pans onto a cooling rack and let cool. 

You’ll be hard pressed to ever buy bread at the store again.