Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

I realized a couple of weeks ago, when we received our new refrigerator, that I had been neglecting my sourdough starter when I removed the crock from the shelf.   I remembered to feed the starter this morning so that I could bake a loaf of bread this afternoon while a roast cooked in the crockpot.  Since I'm up to my elbows in flour, I thought it fitting to focus my next-to-the-last entry in my 'Thirty Days of Thankfulness' blog posting series on making and baking home-made bread.

I much prefer to bake my own bread.  Yes, I occasionally breakdown and purchase a loaf at the grocery store, but for the most part, I prefer to control all the ingredients and I just adore the smell of fresh baked bread.  Nothing says 'Welcome Home' like bread baking in the oven.  My preferred flour, graciously available via my local Dillons grocery store, comes from the King Arthur Flour company.  I live in Kansas, the wheat state, where the prized hard red winter wheat is grown specifically for King Arthur Flour, which based in Vermont since 1790 (KAF is 221 years old, 71 years older than Kansas, which is celebrating it's 150th birthday this year).  In addition to having my flour shipped back from Vermont (albeit it conveniently by my local grocery store), I do special order yeast (by the pound), toppings and other handy gadgets a couple of times a year.  In fact, I recently took advantage of a free shipping sale to re-stock my pantry.  That's the kind of spam e-mail I like to receive (and why I specifically opted in for their newsletter and e-mail notifications of specials).  I even ordered my sourdough starter (plus the crock shown above) from KAF, because it's a descendant of a New England sourdough that has been bubbling away there for over two hundred and fifty years!

Once the sourdough starter bubbled up (three to four hours after feeding), I decided to take the 'easy route' today and make a Rustic Sourdough loaf in my bread machine.  The link above includes both a traditional recipe and a bread machine version. I will include the latter in this blog posting:

Rustic Sourdough

1 cup "fed" sourdough starter
1 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 cups King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast

Place the ingredients in the bread pan in the order suggested by the manufacturer.  Select the basic white cycle and desired crust and allow the bread machine to do the rest.

If you prefer to shape and bake the loaf in your oven, then select the dough cycle.  Remove the doug and gently shape it into an oval loaf, placing it on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover and let rise until very puffy, about 1 hour. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.  Spray the loaves with lukewarm water. Make two fairly deep horizontal slashes in each; a serrated bread knife, wielded firmly, works well here.

Bake the bread for 25 to 30 minutes, until it's a very deep golden brown. Remove it form the oven, and cool on a rack.

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Besides sourdough, I enjoy making Italian supermarket-style bread, Honey Whole Wheat variations and White Bread (made special for my dad).  For more of my recipes, which are frequently variations on recipes posted at the King Arthur Flour web site, please visit My Bread Baking Epiphanies web page.

Sticky Buns

I am thankful to have made it safe and sound through two states to visit my children.  So, for my twenty-third installment of 'Thirty Days of Thankfulness,' I wish to share their (and mine) perennial favorite:  Sticky Buns (follow the link for the recipe and detailed instructions with photos).

Nearly the first thing I did upon arriving at my daughter's apartment was to inventory her pantry and then head to the largest Kroger grocery store in the state of Texas.  As expected, since it was early evening on the day before Thanksgiving, the aisles were jam packed, especially the baking aisle.  We survived with most of our limbs intact and only forgetting one item, which we had forgotten to place on our grocery list.

Once back at the apartment, I installed my old bread machine and began mixing up a batch of the sticky buns, using the dough setting on the bread machine.  Since it was close to eight o'clock, I knew I would be up way past my bedtime.  While my husband and daughter's boyfriend headed over to a friend's house who had graciously agreed to smoke a turkey for us, Rach3elle and I streamed a couple of old Star Trek: Voyager episodes from the sixth season, ones I didn't remember but were quite interesting none-the-less.

We decided to go ahead and bake the first batch of sticky buns last night, using my daughter's large 9x13 inch glass baking dish.  I wasn't completely satisfied with the way the dough mixed and rose, so I wanted to be able to test taste it in case I needed to re-do a batch early in the morning.  Another strange new experience for me: cooking with gas.  My daughter's kitchen apartment includes a Hotpoint gas range.  I have only ever cooked using electric ovens.  Interesting.

The sticky buns came out of the over around 11:30 but when we flipped them over onto a large cookie sheet, several rolls around the edges stuck to the sides and came unraveled.  Prime targets for a taste test.  The results were superb but I would need to make another batch in the morning to fine-tune the recipe.  While I had purchased what I thought was non-fat dry milk at the grocery store, it was actually labelled 'instant' (I really should where my reading glasses while shopping), so I put an eighth to a quarter cup of half-and-half in the liquid portion of the recipe.  This morning, I decided to forgo any dairy aspect of the recipe and the dough does look like it is rising better.

I sometimes make this recipe up for friends and family, but I don't bake it for them.  I send them a batch in a disposable aluminum foil pan with instructions on refrigeration, rising and baking so that they can enjoy this treat fresh out of the oven, sticky, gooey and hot, just like it's meant to be enjoyed.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!