Breeeaaaadd!

Here is a photo log of our bread making day, so that those of you that with they were here can feel like they were!

I think we got a little over zealous here with the sponge- it didn't seem that warm in the house, but it went craaazy! There is probably about three cups of spelt, five to eight of fresh ground red winter wheat, and maybe five of barley flour, one cups oat flakes with enough unbleached white flour for the kneading. If you want to replicate: I put in a little over a cup of nf dry milk powder in the sponge with 1/4 c.ish honey and a few tablespoons sorgum syrup. About 1 tbsp salt, 1 cup heated milk, 1/2c butter and 1/4 c apple cider vinegar were added after the sponge was done and right before I started adding in the bulk of the flour.

I added soooo much flour to knead this monster. The sponge was only maybe eight cups flour, there was at least that much more added to get this to resemble bread dough. Here it is beginning to take shape. Here is also the point at which Basil starts to run over every few minutes asking for a piece.

He has a serious love for this gooey mess. He doesn't care if its a sweet oat or a sourdough rye- when we're making bread, he can't get enough of the little tid bits I rip off for him at his pleas. Once he had a lump so he can help knead it, but then he endded up trying to eat it all, invariably taking out more than one could enjoyably eat and spat it out. Yuck. SO for now, he gets his little bites, hands me more flour if I need it and can help with greater process more when he's a little older.

And we can't forget about dear Aeden. He sat in his chair for a good 40 minutes while I got the dough from sponge to rising dough. It was awesome, he kept on smiling when ever I'd look over, it appears he finds the whole process enthralling too.

If anyone out there has always wanted to make bread, but feels like it is beyond them, I recommend you get The Tassajara Bread Book by Edward Espe. The method he lays out is very flexible and mostly just teaches you a way to make good bread; and once you understand how bead is made and get what the variables do (like types of flour, addition of milk, eggs, oil, etc) you can achieve bread making freedom. Its good to be
free.

Okay, so back to our bread making day. We got the dough all ready to rise, then went out into the garden while it did it's thing. Two hours was the perfect amount of time, with the punch fest breaking it up nicely into two projects. Right now I'm getting the strawberry patch in gear. In about a month I'll have more strawberries than I'll know what to do with, but right now the grass is trying to take over. I let grass live on the other side of the patch. Bad idea. It seems like its purpose in life is to grow into the patch and take it over. So rather than fight it forever I'm slowly taking out all the grass. I think I'm going to put in a moss-like plant or creeping thyme instead in the pathways. Anyway, I guess that should be in anther post!

So, we got it all punched down, waited for the second rise, then came in to shape the loves. Lately, I have been going for it and making four loves at a time. You know, if you are making the mess and heating the oven anyway, its not that much more work to make a ton of bread at once. So I divided the loves into one big and three smaller hunks (see my pan set up), shaped them into balls and let them sit for 5 minutes (in theory, I think it ended up being more than 10). Then I did the fun part. As I folded and turned the dough into itself (gives it "spring") I added in goods. For the small loves I made one of each toasted pumpkin and sunflower seed, a herb cheese, and a date/cranberry/walnut/spice, with the big loaf being walnut. Yes! So exciting! Its probably sad how excited I get about making bread; but you know what, it makes life better. Its like keeping a garden and growing things you can use or having a chicken in the yard. We are so removed from our food these days that getting our hands dirty and seeing something go from plant to seed to flour to bread to my tummy is just awesome.

So, there you have it friends.

delicious!