It's so fluffy I could die!

Happy Independence Day!  I know, I know today is only the 2^nd, but my sources say that the declaration was first signed on the 2^nd of July and then a few slackers waited till the 4^th to sign or something.  I got Ben to admit yesterday that I’m a know-it-all.  I guess there are worse things.

For once, I have found myself with more than plenty to do.  So far today, I ran, did the dishes, got dressed etc., learned a new crochet stitch, and (drumroll, please…)

Baked bread!

Ben calculated it (because that’s just one of those things that he does and I generally take his word for it) and informed me that, slice for slice, it would be more economical if we made all of our own bread rather than buying it.  That might not be true if we were still buying almost-expired store-brand bread or white bread, but there is no Wonder-bread store in this town to supply the former and the latter…well I guess we’re both just a little to snobbish and/or spoiled to settle for less than whole wheat when we can help it.  It helps that wheat flour is the only kind we’ve had in the house for the last two weeks.

So I feel like I need to preface this Cinderella story with some history: after being here just a couple of days, I wanted to make something with the fancy mixer that Ben had gotten me for Christmas, which we hadn’t been able to use because there just wasn’t room for it on the countertop of our last apartment.  At that time, we had only white flour, so naturally, I made white bread.  It was a simple recipe and it turned out great – two loaves of warm, white, sugarless cake (which is all that I snobbishly think good white bread is.  It’s OK.  I’ll own up to it). 

The next week, after the ‘cake’ was gone I decided that I would stand up to my wifely duty and make some real bread – you know, the kind that I wouldn’t feel guilty eating.  I found a recipe.  I followed it perfectly…and my dough would not rise.  I did my best.  I kneaded, waited, formed loaves, baked, all the while hoping against hope that the yeast would find its true calling – better late than never – and cause the dough to fill the expanse of my bread pans.  No such luck.  I came out with three, solid, whole wheat  bricks.  Each one was heavier than a shot put, I kid you not.  I immediately texted my mom to tell her that I failed as a woman.  I’m sure she was rolling her eyes.  I would have been too if I weren’t me and weren’t in such terrible distress.

I pouted about it for the next several days while my husband, stud that he is, snacked on and ultimately consumed all three bricks.  I’ve told him that if he dies or is debilitated early in life from excessive brick intake, he will know whom to blame.  He doesn’t roll his eyes at me, he just laughs. 

Finally, as our food dwindled and our monthly grocery budget expired (about a week and a half early), I decided to (wo)man up and try it again.  I found a recipe online and set to work.  This time I was determined.  I even closed all of my windows, risking an overheated house during the late afternoon.  I said a little prayer and, miracle of miracles, it worked!  My dough rose, my kitchen was filled with the aroma of yeast doing its thing, and I found two lovely, wheaty loaves of bread waiting for me in my oven, just waiting to be sliced and buttered.   

My only problem with them was that they were kind of dense.  They tasted fine, but as they grew older, they got just a little stiff for my taste.  It reminded of me of my bread machine.  Ben can get it to produce beautiful, fluffy bread, but mine is always dense and stiff and becomes more and more cracker-like as the week wears on.

This morning, Ben took the last two slices of that bread to work in the form of a stiff (but not too stiff) PB&J.  I decided that it was time to make bread once again.  I was a little bit tremulous about the whole operation, seeing as how we had made pizza on Saturday night and my dough didn’t rise.  In other words, my mom and husband had both spent a good portion of their weekends hearing about how I was once again a failure as a woman[1].  This time, I tried something I should have tried each of the previous times.  I called my mom and she gave me, in addition to some just-plain good advice, the most wonderful bread-making secret ever.  Read closely, for I will now disclose it, with permission:

The recipe, as revised by me, now goes like this:

·         1 cup of warm water (not hot – the first thing she told me is that I was killing my yeast by making the water too hot)

·         2 tsp of active dry yeast

·         1 cup of milk

·         ¼ cup of honey (I used ¼ cup of sugar + about 1 Tbsp molasses because it’s what I had, but I can’t wait to try it with honey)

·         2 Tbsp canola oil (I think I forgot this ingredient this time around, but everything turned out great anyway)

·         ½ cup of quick oats prepared with 1 cup of water as per instructions on the label

·         ½ cup of prepared rice (<-- this is the secret ingredient!  My mom told me to use brown rice, but being a poor newlywed I only had white around.  It worked splendidly.)

·         4-5 ½ cups of whole wheat flour (the original recipe calls for half white, half wheat.  I’m offended that it claimed to be a whole wheat recipe.  Of all the nerve. =)

·         1 Tbsp salt

1.       Put your water into your mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast on top.  Let it sit for about ten minutes in order to awaken the dormant powers within the yeast.  Add the milk, honey/sugar/whatever, oil, salt, oatmeal, and rice.  Stir to combine.

2.       Add two cups of flour and use your mixer to stir (or combine it by hand if you’re studly like that).

3.       Add the rest of the flour about ½ -1 cup at a time until your dough is “shaggy” (original recipe’s word, not mine).  If there is liquid left over in the bottom, let the dough stand for 20 minutes to absorb it, but there’s never been any left over for me so far.

4.       Knead for 8-9 minutes on floured surface.

5.       Clean out your mixing bowl, dry, and film with oil.  Place dough in the bowl and cover it.  Let rise (it will rise!) for 1-1 ½ hours.

6.       Divide dough into two loose balls and let sit for 10 minutes (? But that’s what the internet told me to do…)

7.       Spray two loaf pans and for each ball into a loaf.  More surface tension on top = better for rising.  Cover and allow to rise 30-40 minutes.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees during rise.

It's rising so beautifully!

8.       If you want to be fancy, use a knife to cut a shallow slit or two on the top of each loaf.  Place loaves in to oven and immediately decrease heat to 375 degrees.  Cook for 30-35 minutes (be careful, though.  If your oven cooks hot like mine, 25 minutes will do the trick).

It is so fluffy.  So fluffy.  I had to have at least three slices right off the bat just for joy (and because it was already 2:00 PM and I hadn’t had lunch yet) and they were each delicious.  The original recipe told me not to cut the bread until it was completely cooled.  I think that was because they don’t believe that anyone should enjoy bread as much as I did. 

I tried to get a good picture of the bread, but if you can’t tell what the texture is like, you’ll just have to trust me.  To my limited experience, at least, this was a success.

*Sigh*  I am so happy.  Thanks Mom.

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[1] Note: I do not mean to imply that all women should be able to make bread or make yeast rise or anything like that.  Unfortunately, I come from a family of women who sew, quilt, and do all manner of homemaker-ish things from scratch.  I married into another such family.  The whole failure-as-a-woman thing is really mostly a tactic to get my mom to roll her eyes and my husband to laugh, and usually to give me a hug too. =)