bread baking

Lately, I've been determined to eat really good bread. You might be thinking, duh, aren't we all? Yes, we all should be eating good bread but most likely your not. Have you checked whats in your all natural loaf recently? Things like Monoglycerides- huh?, Datem- what's that?, Calcium Propionate- hmm? None of my recipes call for that stuff so that's way I've been baking my own bread. I will admit, it's totally time consuming and you definitely got to plan around it. But oh my gosh, is it delicious and worth it! If you don't have time to do it yourself, please try to avoid breads with too many ingredients and ingredients you cant say. 

Here are a few of the beauties I've been baking! All of the recipes use yeast, flour (white or whole wheat), sugar or honey, butter or oil, water and/or milk, salt and maybe eggs- those I can trust! Aren't they pretty?!

40/60 Bread- Whole Wheat and White Flour Rolls...

 ..and Loaf

Honey Cornmeal

Winter Oatmeal

Challah 

Healthy-er Zucchini Bread

Zucchini Bread is so misleading. Even though it's packed with veggies, it's always too oily and overly sweet. So, I decided to tone it down a bit without messing up what everyone loves about Zucchini Bread! It's just as tasty and has an even better texture due to the oats.  Don't feel bad when you've already made four loaves in one week... like I did!

And it definitely helped get rid of my over abundance of zucchini from my garden!

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup apple sauce
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 cups grated zucchini, green or yellow
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup rolled oats

Beat eggs until foamy in a large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients and mix completely together. Put batter into two greased  9 x 5" loaf pans. Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

Unfortunately, the Easter Bunny didn't leave this for me in my Easter basket, so waking up early on Easter morning was a must to bake these beauties.  I used a recipe straight out of Beth's Basic Bread Book (one of the cookbooks I recommend). I cant admit that this was easy, because for me baking bread is always a task. Having it rise properly is always such a relief! They turned out delicious and totally cute! I love shaping the dough into clover rolls, perfect for spring.

Buttermilk Dinner Rolls

makes 16 rolls

1 package active dry yeast

Pinch granulated sugar

1/4 cup warm water

1 cup warm buttermilk (not too hot or else it will become cheese... yes, I accidentally made cheese)

2 tbl sugar or honey

zest from one lemon

1/4 cup unsalted butter, warm

1 egg

4 to 4 1/2 cups of flour

Combine the yeast, sugar and warm water in a small bowl and stir to dissolve. Let stand until foamy about 10 minutes.

In a large bowl using a whisk or a mixer with a paddle attachment, combine the buttermilk, sugar, zest, melted butter, egg and salt. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of flour and beat hard for a minute. Add 1/2 cup flour at a time until a soft dough forms and clears the sides of the bowl. I got up to 4 cups of flour.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic for 4-7 minutes. Lightly grease a large bowl and lightly flour the dough. Place the dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 1-1 1/2 hour or until doubled in size. 

* Dough will rise better when it's in a warm place. When I'm baking, I like to turn the oven on to heat up the kitchen.

After it has doubled in size, turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Grease a muffin tin. Divide the dough in half and cut the dough into eight equal portions. Pinch off three equal pieces of dough from each portion (total of 48 pieces) and shape each into smooth balls. Place three balls touching each other in each muffin cup. Then cover with plastic wrap and let rise for another half hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. After the final rise brush each roll with an egg glaze (one egg beaten with one tbl water). Sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds. Place in the oven and bake for 15-18 minutes or when golden brown. When cooled a bit take out of the muffin tin and enjoy!