{"id":1568,"date":"2023-06-09T11:49:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T11:49:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/?p=1568"},"modified":"2023-06-11T15:44:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T15:44:06","slug":"bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/2023\/06\/09\/bread\/","title":{"rendered":"Bread"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The loaf of bread from day 7. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’ve never had much luck baking bread (except for cornbread or biscuits; here, I mean wheat yeast bread). I’ve tried from time to time and mostly just got discouraged by it. Both of the kids wanted to learn more about cooking, including baking bread, so we made it a week-long project. We baked a loaf of bread that we made from scratch each day for a week. We started off without a recipe and made changes to what we came up with based on how it turned out each day. We were careful to keep notes of each change and document each step. The first few days were awful. One “loaf” was bitter. Another was like a giant cookie made out of wood. However, the kids had a lot of fun making each one, it started to improve and become more edible, and by the end of the week, I was very pleased with the results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Day 1, this bread did not turn out well but it was fun to make. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here is our current working recipe: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Wash hands.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • 1 cup of dechlorinated water. Set out overnight, covered with a gap for the chlorine to diffuse away.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Warm water in the microwave for 30 seconds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Add 2 tsp sugar (more recently we’ve been adding before warming).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Add 1 (or 2) tbsp yeast (bread machine yeast, it’s what we had available). <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Stir and let sit for 10 minutes to activate the yeast in slightly warm water in the absence of salt. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Put 3 cups of flour (unbleached all-purpose, not self-rising) in a bowl.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Add 1 tsp sea salt to the flour.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Mix salt and flour. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Add 1 (or 2) egg(s) to the flour and salt mix. (Adding egg is optional.) <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Mix.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Add the yeast, sugar, and water mixture.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Mix.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Flour hands and board.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Knead bread dough 10 times in half. (Fold and press flat, 20 times might work better, still experimenting.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Heat oven at 350 F setting for 1 minute before adding the bowl of dough to rise. (It is nowhere near 350 F, just warm.) Make sure you turn the oven off again!<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Let the dough rise for 1\/2 hour in the slightly warm oven. (Turned off!)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Fold the parchment paper so that none sticks out over the edge of the tray, or it will char.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Shape the dough into an oval\/rectangle by pushing in the lower part and stretching the top. Use minimal manipulation. Place onto a baking tray on parchment paper.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • After shaping, add oats, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds to the top. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Make three diagonal slices across the top.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Let it sit in the pan in the oven for 1\/2 hour to rise.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Clean up.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Bake at 375 F for 40 minutes. (This is without preheating. The 40 minutes includes the heating period.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Take it out of the oven and let it cool a bit before slicing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    We are continuing to experiment. The latest involves adding some flaxseed meal, rye flour, honey, and\/or sprinkling sea salt on the crust before baking. I’ve also been thinking about putting sunflower seeds or dried cranberries into the dough. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’ve never had much luck baking bread (except for cornbread or biscuits; here, I mean wheat yeast bread). I’ve tried from time to time and mostly just got discouraged by it. Both of the kids wanted to learn more about cooking, including baking bread, so we made it a week-long project. We baked a loaf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recipes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/PXL_20230607_151941976-scaled.jpg","views":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1568"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1579,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1568\/revisions\/1579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/floydsplace.us\/wpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}