Bread Recipes

I've recently begun baking bread again.  I don't own a bread machine anymore (a victim of one of our many down-sizings), so I'm using the dough hook attachment on my Kitchenaid stand mixer for basically the first time since we got the mixer.  A friend just asked me to share recipes, and I like to do that over the blog, even though my girls are pretty mad that I shared their secret-recipe cookie dough here.

When we became a vegetarians in high school, my friend Jamie and I learned to cook together.  I still remember standing in the produce section of Price Chopper trying to figure out what a eggplant was.  There were too many labels over one shelf!  So we asked a bystander.  She didn't know either.  I don't remember how we figured it out.  About the same time, we made hummus and mistook a "clove" of garlic for a "bulb!"  That was some garlicky sandwich spread!!

I don't think I started experimenting with bread until college.  Better than what most college students experiment with...Ahm!  I do not remember much success at that time either.  I had a terrible time getting yeast to "work," and now I think I used hot water.  And the worst part was that I hated wasting anything, so I would just use it anyway and get some doughy, disgusting concoctions.  All part of the learning process, I suppose.  This may be how I ended up getting a bread machine, which I think was a birthday present from my parents the first year we got married- which was also the year I graduated college.

I struggled with the bread machine.  I could never get the loaf out of the pan smoothly, and the paddle in the bottom left a huge hole in the bread.  It was an awkwardly shaped pan.  Most often I used it for dough, either pizza/breadsticks or cinnamon rolls.  This has, by the way, created or at least encouraged a monster in my husband. 

So something about having a full-size kitchen again has awakened a desire to cook and bake.  My daughters have taken over all cookie-baking, so here I am, baking bread.  I still usually make gluten-free breads for my little kids from mixes because I don't want to mess up and waste such expensive ingredients, but I am working on it.  I started making sandwich bread for fun but also to avoid the vilified high fructose corn syrup and basically because it seems "homey" to me.  Everyone loves the smell of bread baking.  The down side is that at least half a loaf of the fresh bread frequently disappears before it even cools completely.

Here's my favorite recipe that has worked successfully lately (out of the cookbook that came with the mixer, btw):

Honey Oatmeal Bread

1 1/2 c. water
1/2 c. honey
1/3 c. margarine or butter
5 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 c. quick-cooking oats
2 tsps. salt
2 packages active dry yeast ( I use jarred Fleishman's, 4 1/2 tsps.)
2 eggs
1 egg white
1 Tbsp. water
Oatmeal


These instructions are my "version" of what's written in my cookbook.  Preheat your oven to the lowest temp it will go to or "warm."  Mine goes to 170.  When it's warm, turn it off.  Melt butter in a bowl for about 30 seconds in the microwave, add honey and water, and microwave another 30 seconds.  If you can use a candy thermometer, check for it to be about 120 or 130 degrees.  In large mixing bowl , place 5 cups of the flour, the oatmeal, the salt and the yeast (I do not recommend doing this in anything smaller than my mixer, or with a handmixer unless it is really something special.)  Stir up that dry mix, then add warm milk mixture and eggs, mixing constantly.  Add another 1- 1 1/2 cups flour half a cup at a time until the dough become smooth and elastic or clings to the hook and cleans the side of the bowl.

Grease a clean glass mixing bowl and put the dough in it.  Turn the dough over so that the surface is coated with oil.  Cover with plastic wrap or foil and put it in that nice warm oven.  Let it rise about an hour or until it doubles. 

Punch it down, plop it out on a floured surface and cut it in half.  Roll each half out to about 8 x 14 inches. Roll up on the short side, pinch the seam closed, roll the ends under if it is too long,and put in in a greased loaf pan.  Let rise in the oven again for about an hour, covered with a dishtowel. 

When risen, take them out and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  If using metal pans turn the oven down 25 degrees.  In a small bowl, beat the egg white and Tablespoon of water in a small bowl or cup, and brush the risen loaves.  Sprinkle with oatmeal.  Cover loosely with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes.  Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes, then loosen with butter knife and turn out to cool completely.  Do not wrap up until completely cool.


For Cinnamon buns, I highly recommend going to allrecipes.com and searching the words "Clone of a Cinnabon."  (Caution:  makes a Huge amount!  Do this when friends are coming over!)