One thing I truly believe, when it comes to food, is that you cannot fail with good quality ingredients, simply but properly prepared. After that, all good cooking is simply a derivative of this base. Working at this base level certainly requires some knowledge of ingredients, flavors, and proper cooking techniques, but, in truth, good recipes and the help of a good cooking book with even a modest collection of tools will get you along way toward food worth eating.
One of the most basic foods is bread. For what ever reason bread has developed a reputation for being difficult to make. I don't understand this reputation for two reasons. First of all, bread is one of the oldest prepared foods. If it was that complex or required fancy technology, it would not have the historical underpinnings it has. Second, I've made a lot of bread. It's not foolproof, but it's also not that far from it.
Of further amusement to me is how home baked bread, especially when still warm, is considered one of the peaks of gastronomic satisfaction. I should clarify; it's reception as a delight to the senses is no surprise. Good bread is awesome. My humor comes from bread's status as some rare treat. It need not be.
From a technological standpoint, for me, baking bread uses a good mixer, the mixing bowl itself, a fairly solid surface for some kneading, a flat tray for baking, a small variety of measuring tools, and an oven. That's pretty minimal with the mixer being the one thing most people might not have as I am talking about a fairly heavy duty, high capacity mixer. The thing to note there, however, is the mixer really only speeds things up; it is not at all necessary if you are willing to do some modest hand mixing and more kneading than otherwise.
But for this post, I am going to assume that you either have access to a basic bread book or you've made bread before. If you don't or have not, please contact me or leave a reply and I'll post on the actual process of making bread or, better yet, come on over and we'll make bread together. Actually, almost any cooking done with someone who already knows is twice delightful. You get both relationship and knowledge.
Jen wanted a bread with more grit and fiber and so I came up with this recipe a few months ago. Since our chickens give us far too many eggs for our appetites, I also designed the recipe to use up extra eggs. It's really an excellent bread, but very basic and requires nothing out of the ordinary in terms of bread making skills. What follows, then, is simply the list of ingredients. I almost always just bake bread as round loaves on a flat, lightly greased pan. There is no reason you couldn't also bake in conventional rectangular loaf pans.
Approximately 6 cups high gluten flour.
1 1/2 Tablespoons dry yeast
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
1/4 cup sunflower seed
1/8 cup flax seed
3/4 cup Pumpernickel Rye flour
1/4 cup 8 grain cereal
1/4 cup wheat bran
2 cups water
2/3 cups olive oil
4 eggs
Bake @ 375 for 30-35 minutes
Off the top of my head, I would guess the actual cost of the ingredients for this recipe (which makes three decent size loaves) is about $3. Given the fact that good, home made bread is one of the more satisfying things to eat, and given that so many so rarely get the experience, and given that the price is right, I stand comfortable in my claim of budget luxury. It's the weekend ... go bake some.
*If something in here is not clear, if you have a technical question, if you have a question on where to find good ingredients, or if you are inviting yourself over, feel free to get in touch. Bon appetit!
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