Honey Gold Bread

So, wow, I'm so excited to have another bread recipe. This is a wheat bread recipe which is also very exciting, as I've only ever made white bread. It's actually another sourdough recipe but very good, go figure. I hope you enjoy as much as I have.

Please refer to previous post (Dollar Pancakes) for the instructions about sourdough.

Honey Gold Bread - Marie Reese

Set your sourdough batter the night before. in the morning stir and put 1 cup of starter back in your pot.

2 cups milk

2 tbls butter

1/4 cup honey

1 package active dry yeast

2 cups wheat flour

1/4 cup wheat germ

2 tbls sugar

2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

4 cups white flour

Scald milk; stir in butter and honey, then allow to cool until lukewarm. Add yeast and stir until dissolved. Add this mix to basic sourdough batter previously prepared. Add 2 cups wheat flour and wheat germ, stirring until well mixed. Blend sugar, salt and soda until smooth; sprinkle over top of dough and stir in gently. Set dough in a warm spot and cover with a cloth and let rise for 30 minutes. Stir down and add remaining flour until dough is too stiff to stir with a spoon. Turn out on floured board and begin to knead with your hands. (NOTE: Flour required may vary from quantity indicated -one must gauge the feel-rather too little than too much). Work in remaining flour, kneading with heels of hands about 100 times until dough is light and satiny to the touch. Do not knead too long or include too much flour, or the sponge will be heavy and dry. Break into sections, flour lightly, fold over and seal. Place in greased bread pans; pans should be half full. Grease top of loaves, set in warm spot and let double in bulk agian. Meanwhile preheat oven to moderately hot (400 degrees F). When loaves have risen, bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Then reduce temp to moderately slow (325 degrees F) and continue baking until bread shrinks from side of pans. When baked, loaves will give a hollow sound when thumped on top. Remove from oven, turn out on rack or towel on table and butter tops.

White Bread

Since we had roast yesterday for dinner, today it's beef stew. I threw it all together in the crock pot this morning while the kids were having breakfast. I love dinners like that! So, I thought the perfect addition to stew is homemade white bread still hot from the oven. Actually, Heidi saw the stew and thought it looked disgusting; then she saw the bread baking and asked if she could just have bread for dinner. Which is basically what she did.

I don't make bread very often but I do enjoy myself when I do. This recipe comes from my Grandma Daley. My mom has told me that she would make this recipe everyday for her family and I can't really recall a time of ever going to Grandma's house without having this very same bread. I don't really think I make it as well as Grandma because it's always better at her house. Most things are that way though, don't you think. When I think of my Grandma Daley I think of an elegant lady. That's a good word for her I think -elegant. She has always been so beautiful. My mother told me that when she was young people used to mistake them for sisters. I hope that happens with me and my daughters someday. Grandma is also very kind and softspoken and I really love that about her. I love that though she's very sweet she can completely change when she's watching a football game. She will swear and yell at the game and I think it's very funny. When I make this bread I think of her and what she might have been like when she was young like me with little ones hanging on her heels while she cooked. Her life was harder than mine and I didn't have as close a relationship with her as I would have liked but I feel like in a small way I'm connecting with her through her bread. Silly as that may seem.

Today's helper was Ruben. I tried to enlist Heidi's help today but she was soon bored and ran off to play. However, Ruben climbed right up onto the counter and stayed there the entire time. He had a great time playing in the dough and flour. We got a little bit messy.

Grandma's White Bread-Geraldine Daley

Put 2 Tbs. yeast in 3/4 cups warm water. Let stand.

4 cups hot water (as hot as it will come out of the tap)

2/3 cup honey

1/2 cup canola oil

2 Tbs. salt

Stir in 5 cups of flour. Stir in yeast mixture. Add 5 more cups flour and knead adding flour until the dough is soft and smooth but not sticky (about 6 to 8 minutes). Let rise until double in size (about 45 to 60 minutes). Punch down. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and divide in half. Let rest about 10 minutes. Shape 4 loaves and put them into bread pans and let rise until the top of the dough is at the top of the tin (about 30 minutes). Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.