Bread making is a passion of mine. I’ve been doing it for over 20 years. When I first went to live in Germany at the age of 19, I lived in a basement flat rented from a German family. They were wonderful landlords, from which I learned to knit and the art of bread making.
I’ve read through quite a few bread machine recipe books that say that you must measure precisely. Forget it. Anything and everything from the climate to the altitude will seriously effect the amounts of ingredients. I promise that the identical recipe will yield night and day results baked in one home in the southern humidity, and entirely different results in the mountains. I’ve never been able to reproduce the beautiful loaves I could turn out in Germany, having never again lived at such high altitude combined with humidity.
CJ’s Daily Bread - 100% whole wheat (not that it probably matters, but I filter our water, I use organic eggs, oil and honey or cane sugar, and grind our flour by hand)
- 1-1/2 cups very warm water
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons oil (I generally use safflower)
- 2 tablespoons honey or cane sugar
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
- 3 to 3-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 scant tablespoon instant acting yeast
Put ingredients in the order given into a bread machine. Let it run through the dough cycle until it stops kneading, reset the machine and let it complete the dough cycle. During the first run, you’ll think the dough is way too wet. But generally by the time it starts into the 2nd cycle of kneading, the dough starts coming together. Only then, add more flour if you think it needs it, but this dough should be very sticky, just firm enough to manage with wet hands. It will stay spread out inside the pan in the machine.
After dough cycle is complete, toss a couple handfuls of water onto a cutting board, place the dough on it and cut in half. With wet hands, shape the dough into two loaves and plop it into greased bread pans. I bake it in a 350 degree convection oven until it’s golden brown.
Maple Buttermilk Bread (this may be my new favorite!)
- 1 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 1/2 tablespoons soft butter
- 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
- 3 cups bread flour
- 1/3 cup dry buttermilk powder
- 1 tablespoon gluten
- 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
Place all ingredients in the pan according to the order in your manufacturer’s instructions. Set crust to medium and program to the Basic Cycle.
Foccacia
- 1 cup warm water
- 1/4 cup olive oil (use the good stuff)!
- 1 heaping tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1 tablespoon herb of choice (I usually use either rosemary or hot red pepper flakes).
- 3 cups white flour (adjust accordingly, I like this dough to be stiff).
- 1-2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon yeast
