Thread: Bread Machines versus Oven Baked?

Originally Posted by jkpjohnson

Thanks, I guess I might have to break down and go get the Sam's card.

You might want to track down a friend who has a Sam club Card and arrange to go with them so you'll know if it's worth it or not. If you will only want a few things like yeast your friend might be willing to pick it up when you request and you can pay them for it. I do that for a couple friends. One only wants laundry soap quarterly and another wants Spaghetti Sauce mix a couple times a year. If you want more than a few items a year get your own card other wise let a friend get it for you. I keep my yeast in the freezer and keep dates on everything so it gets rotated through. Sam's just had a huge price increase. I usually buy in bulk from other places and might have to find my honey and yeast elsewhere. Beans and flour there doubled this last month. glad I had a years supply already laid in. Now I can shop for lower prices or wait for the price to drop.

Ok I only make whole wheat bread now that I grind as I go. Here is the recipe I've been using for several months:

1 Wondermill grinder 6 cups of Red Hard Wheat kernels to grind into flour
2 tablespoons sea salt
2 tablespoons Saf Yeast
3 tablets of vitamin C (to grind with the wheat)
1 tablespoon cooking oil ( for kneading)
½ cup of powdered milk
½ cup Oats
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup of honey
½ cup Vital Wheat Gluten
Bread Start to Finish
There is nothing as comforting a food as fresh homemade bread. And it's really quite simple to make. All you need are the proper tools and a great attitude.

There are 3 basic steps: Grinding Mixing and Baking
Let's start with step one: Grinding

I start with 6 cups of wheat kernels straight from my bucket. And to that I add, into my hopper.
3 vitamin C tables, which is 1500 milligrams of vitamin C, which is a natural dough enhancer. It is simply Ascorbic Acid and it gives your bread that loft and that yummy texture that you love. So I am going to put this in the hopper and in just a second I will have my fresh flour for step 2.

Step 2: Mixing
Let's get started:
I'll start with about 4 cups of warm water.
To that I'll add a ½ a cup of a whole bunch of ingredients:
Start with powdered milk.
Regular oats.
Next I put in some vegetable oil, just a ½ a cup.
And then I add my honey. This is a great natural sweetener.
I'll then add, three cups of freshly ground whole wheat flour.
Now I'll turn it (the bread mixer) on and let it do its thing. Once it is nice and smooth and bubbly, I'll be sure to add my yeast. Now I am very particular about my yeast, and I only use Saf Yeast®. The reason I like this is because the shelf life is so long. This can actually stay 8 years on my shelf or in the freezer almost indefinitely. It comes in hard block like this, and you can probably find it in a supermarket. Once I cut the seal, it turns into this fabulous instant yeast that's easy for me to put in my bread (dough). So I add that in, 2 tablespoons.
And also I put in some Vital Wheat Gluten. Now you remember that I talked about vitamin C, that was our dough enhancer that should help give our bread the loft and the fluffiness that we love. But if you happen to have wheat that is less than perfect in the quality and protein, and you want to beef it up a bit. This gives it a great texture. You'll love this. It is just a ½ a cup of gluten flour, and can usually find it at your local grocery store. I'll add that in as well.
We are almost done. We have one more ingredient.
You want to make sure you knead this again, about one or two minutes, until it's smooth.
And then I'll add 2 tablespoons of sea salt. This is another thing I am very particular about, because it has the natural iodine I love so much.
At the end I'll add 4 or 5 more cups of my freshly ground wheat flour.
You'll know that your dough is just right once you put in enough flour that you can start seeing the bottom of your bread bowl (the mixing bowl).
If you put in too much your bread bowl gets too blight and brittle and you keep worrying about that. But if you only add as much as tell you in the recipe, you'll come out with a beautiful dough. It will be sticky when you start mixing it, but give it a good 10 minutes and it will be this beautiful thing. When you come back, you will see that the dough has cleaned the sides of the bowl, and we are ready to shape our loaves.
Well now we are on to step 3, and can you believe it!, we only started about 12 minutes ago!

Now that you let this mix for about 12 minutes it's nice and smooth elastic. It feels so good and smells fabulous.
You can see that it cleaned all the sides of the bowl and I didn't touch it once.

Now we are ready to shape our loaves.
Now in order to let this dough rise properly, you want to make sure to pre-heat your oven to 150 degrees (Do not leave the oven on after pre-heating, turn off the over before placing your bread loaves in.).
You won't cover your loaves.
Once it is 150 degrees you'll take your loaves in your pans (bread baking pans) and you place them in your oven. You let them sit there about 30 minutes. They will rise double, and then we will go ahead and bake them.
To bake the loaves, simply turn the over up to 350 degrees and bake for 40 t0 45 minutes or until golden brown.
Let me show you how easy it is to shape the loaves: We'll just pull this dough right out of our mixer. It should all come out in one nice glob. Just like that. Now I take just a dab of oil, about a tablespoons or less. And I put on my kitchen counter and I give it a good knead by hand. This helps it be nice and smooth and it helps it rise without any stretch mark. Then, I take my knife, and I divide it into three sections. Just like this.
So give it a quick spray (spray the bread baking pans), and we are ready to shape the loaves. So all you will do, is you'll just roll them up like this. There is no science to this.

Pat a little bit in the end, and flop it in the pan, just like that! Let's try it one more time, just put it to bed! The third time is the charm!...and there you go.

These are going go into my 150 degrees oven. And I'll be back in a half an hour.
Just a quick note: You pre-heated your oven to 150 degrees, once it reaches that, put your loaves in and turn off the oven.

After the loaves have risen in the oven, turn the oven back on to 350 degrees and bake the loaves for 40 to 45 minutes, or until golden brown.

Now look at these beautiful loaves of bread that you've just pulled out of the oven. In less than an hour, you too can bake bread from scratch, at home.
this recipe comes from a great site I use:

SimplyLivingSmart Training and Preparedness Community-simplylivingsmart

Click the Welcome, Beginners link and then down on the right side are video lessons. choose food storage and then wheat and breads to watch Her make this awesome 100% whole wheat bread. It was a lot easier than the recipe I was using so I use this one now. I loved her tip of using Vit c to grind in with the wheat!

I pay the $9.95 a month to take their live classes also but a lot of the site is free. Watch the videos on beans! the bean burgers really work- my picky eaters never knew they were eating beans and beef together!

Here's a recipe I got from my Amish neighbor:

Anna's Honey Oat Bread

2 1/2 cups boiling Water
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup Honey
2 cups whole wheat flour or more
3/4 cup oil
4 beaten eggs
2 T. yeast
2 T. salt

dissolve yeast in 1 cup of warm water. Pour boiling water over the oatmeal and set aside to cool until lukewarm. Mix all ingredients and beat well. then add the yeast, being sure everything is just warm before adding. work in enough unbleached or bread flour to make a nice spongy dough that is not sticky. Grease top and let rise. Knead and make loaves and rise again. Bake 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Lower heat to 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. A delicious, nourishing bread.

I usually get 4 loaves out of this. My family loves this to make toast out of.