Still Making the Bread -- One Year Later

As you may recall, one of my new year's resolutions from the beginning of LAST year was to start making our family's bread.  Since I'm sure everyone is DYING for an update on that, I thought I'd oblige.  Hahaha.  {If only because I just made a batch yesterday.} 

Since I started making the bread (while still buying the butter), I have discovered a few things.  First of all, the consumption really does taper off after the initial novelty of homemade bread wears off.  In the beginning, it seemed as though I was making more bread every other day.  Fast forward one year later, and I probably make it twice a week.  Second of all, our switch over to homemade bread has made bread snobs of the girls.  Grace in particular will not eat store bought bread at all and thinks it's so gross.  Granted, the whole wheat/multi-grain kind of store bought bread I will occasionally buy really does taste like cardboard and I'm sure if I were buying more sumptuous style loaves or WHITE bread, she'd probably be perfectly fine, but still.  I did not see that one coming.  Third, bread needs time to "rest" before being cut.  It makes it SO much easier to cut and the loaf stays a lot softer and moist.  That being said, there really is nothing like a slice of hot bread right out of the oven slathered with butter.  For sandwich-making purposes, though, the bread really holds up better if I don't even cut it until the next day when it has obviously completely cooled.  And finally, my kids can't slice bread evenly to save their lives.  It took me a while to come to the realization that the simple solution was for me to slice up an entire loaf at a time, but since I have a lot less bread is being wasted and thrown in the trash.

Since my original bread-making "how to" post back in February of last year, I've made a few changes and figured a few things out that make the whole process a lot easier.  Which has made it possible for me to keep up with and is why I'm still making the bread a whole year later.  {Having the recipe memorized was the biggest factor in making the process "no big deal."  All the other changes have more to do with my laziness than anything else.  Hahaha.}

Homemade Bread

5 c. warm water

2 T. yeast

1 T. salt

3/4 c. olive oil

3/4 c. honey

1 c. flaxseed meal {I buy a big bag from Costco}

10-12 c. whole wheat flour {I have a Nutrimill so I grind my own}

I essentially add the above list of ingredients to my Kitchen Aid mixer (in that order) and let it mix away, adding the last few cups of flour in a half cup at a time just until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, and the motor burns out -- as it inevitably does each and every time.  Hahaha.  Poor little Kitchen Aid.  Once that happens, I plop the dough out onto the {oiled} counter top and knead it just a bit more, before leaving it there to rise for about 45 minutes.  If you compare notes with my original posting you'll see that I no longer bother with dirtying up a whole other bowl {when the dough doesn't even stay contained in it anyway} and instead simply leave it be after rubbing a little bit of olive oil all over the top to keep it from getting dried out.  Or at least that's why I do it in theory.  I have no idea if it actually does anything at all, but since I don't put a towel over it while it's rising I figured I needed to do SOMETHING in it's place.  Haha. 

 Pre-Rising.

 Post-rising.

 A close-up.

Once the dough has roughly doubled in size, I punch it down and divide into 4 pieces, knead each one a bit more before putting them in bread pans (which have already been oiled or sprayed with Pam), cover with a dish towel this time, and let them rise for another 45 minutes.  After they've risen, I bake them at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.  And I'd just like to say for the record that our oven here in our new house SUCKS.  I hate it so much.  But obviously not enough to fork over thousands of dollars to replace it with something else.  But seriously, everything has to be switched around regularly otherwise the bottom rack will ALWAYS burn on the bottom and the top rack will be burned on the top and dough-y on the bottom.  Harumph.  First world problems.

 Freshly sliced loaf from lunch time.  Alex enjoyed himself a butter and jam sandwich.

 Although what he was really enjoying was that jam.  Caught red-handed dipping into the jar.  Not caught?  A shot of him DRINKING the jam from the jar after I had gone to put away the camera.  Hahaha.  Oh Lover Boy.

So, there you have it.  The new and improved Bread Tutorial.  Hahaha.  Just in case anyone cared.  And although I am still buying the butter, I am now up for learning how to make my own jam.  The strawberry freezer jam that young Alexander is sampling up above there tasted really good, but wasn't very jam-like.  Probably because it used chia seed in place of pectin.  In my quest to reduce the amount of refined sugar consumed in this home, though, I am now on the hunt for the perfect recipe!  Let me know if you've tried any that you really like.  :)