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Baking your own bread

As I have said here before, I really love bread. I am beginning to actually practice my recent preach of baking over buying, and the result has been wonderful, full of surprises, and fun with tasty experiments. I still have a 100 calorie flat round or two that I’m making my way through, but my freezer is empty of half-price day-old kaiser rolls and 6 packs of garlic naan, so the time has finally come to get into the practice of making bread twice a week or so. In preparation for this, I’ve gathered a few things: A large bag of whole wheat flour, a small jar of rapid rise yeast, some sea salt, and a water purifier.

Many benefits exist for baking over buying. I know exactly what is going into my food. I am gaining a useful skill. I enjoy the process of making, waiting, watching, and revealing that is inherent in baking, and stolen with buying. I like the science of it. I like the sensory aspects of it, the sights smells, tastes, and feel that are mostly absent from purchasing. The cost of a loaf at home is about $1.50, all said, and the cost of the average loaf at the store, with all of its flaws mentioned here, not to mention the extra ingredients, like preservatives and chemicals, is around $2.50 or more. Artisan loaves are expensive at the store, more reasonable at home. A very good article on this particular aspect is here.

I like recipes that you can remember. I tend to remember those that use whole measures, an example of which is Mark Bittman’s pancake recipe that uses one egg, one cup of flour, one cup of milk, 1 Tbsp of honey, and so on. They are nice when you can find them. I adore simplicity.

Most bread recipes I’ve found do not do this. I decided to make one that does. It could not be simpler, and uses only four ingredients, which I’ve mentioned above.

Basic 4 ingredient bread recipe

• 4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 2 cup filtered water

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, add each ingredient in turn as listed above, mixing as you go.
2. Mix with a large spoon until dough forms a ball incorporating all or most of the mixture.
3.  Turn out into an oiled iron skillet, and let rise between 5 and 24 hours in a warm space.
4. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

One cup of whole wheat flour is 400 calories, so this loaf will be 1600 calories in all. I will likely eat a quarter of it each day.

Related articles

• Types of Flour Used to Make Bread (homebreadmaking.com)
• It’s Bread!! (cookingforthechemicallysensitive.wordpress.com)
• Naan Bread (allaboutchantelle.wordpress.com)
• Banana Bread (eatinghealthy4less.wordpress.com)

Baking cornbread rather than buying it

I have decided recently to stop buying baked goods like cornbread and start making my own. Flour, sugar and other raw ingredients are far cheaper than the packaged, processed breads, crusts, and other baked goods. The act of cooking gives you a sense of pride and accomplishment. The fact that I know exactly precisely what is going into my baked goods means that I have control and agency with it. I have been doing a lot of stove-top cooking lately, and I decided that it was time to begin learning more deeply about the baking side. I’ve made plenty of breads in the past, and so I knew how easy it was to do and what great rewards came from it.

I was looking for a reasonable idea for dessert for my boys, who I visit with a few times a week, and cornbread seemed like just the  thing. I recently told them that we were going to stop getting donuts and pretzels at Wawa for snacks, and start making most of our own food during our visits. Not only did they understand the financial reasoning behind it, they genuinely love to help me cook, and seem to enjoy the food that they helped to make far more than the processed foods we used to purchase. This may have started as a temporary fix to help pinch some pennies, but it is making more nutritional, philosophical, and emotional sense now too.

Simple Cornbread

This recipe has some great nutritional value: it’s vegetarian, low in fat, low in sugar, has whole grains, good oil, and is a great vehicle for nuts, fruit, or greens, like sauteed spinach.

• 1 cup stone ground corn meal
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup raw sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 cup water
• 1 egg

In two bowls, combine the dry ingredients separately from the wet ingredients. Then slowly mix in the wet into the dry. Do not over-mix  but mix until smooth. Pour into a oiled loaf pan and bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes.

Enjoy with tea, coffee, or as part of a meal.