
Guest Bloggers Heidi and Maude Bake Bread
It’s more than a bit ridiculous to call today’s post a guest post since Heidi has been with SPC from the start. I’ve been wanting to try to bake my own bread and reading Heidi’s family recipe, I don’t know why I’ve been intimated to try. This post was meant to run before Christmas but in the chaos of the holidays, it didn’t happen. It’s all my fault! But I can tell you that when Heidi was baking bread she would email me with descriptions of how great their house was smelling and how quickly the bread was disappearing. Most of all I love the picture that Heidi unearthed of a baking session with her Mom and sister in the 70s. I think we had the same wood paneling in our house. – C.M.
You baked your own bread? Really? Oh yes, yes I did.
I’m a little Coo Coo for Christmas. In fact, I start thinking about it right after Labour Day. And since I now have my own kids to spoil and celebrate and create magic for, my Christmas craziness has taken on a whole new dimension. My husband is forced to just stand back and deal with the fall out. I think I know what part of my problem is. I am gathering the highlights of Christmases past and trying to jam each and every special moment into one Christmas…this one. Like the time we made ALL the tree ornaments, or the one when my aunt made us all the same pajamas, the one where we went on a sleigh ride through the country, or the year that my three cousins, brother and sister and I slept in the same room and someone started laughing in their sleep which set us all off and eventually room by room the entire house woke up, everyone laughing and no one sure why. Oh! Or the year I got my first pair of skates from Santa, or staying up late listening to my parents wrap presents and waiting to hear Santa on the landing filling the stockings. Oh, the excitement, the anticipation, the sheer magic of it all! And I want every Christmas for my kids to encompass everything from my entire childhood. It is nice to have goals, but it is a recipe for disaster.
So here’s a recipe that’s super easy, lots of fun and high impact.
This hails back to the 1970’s if not before. This photo was taken in 1978 which makes me 5 years old. My mother, sister and I baking bread. I may be biased, as even the smell of the rising yeast brought back a flood of happy memories, but fresh out of the oven with melted butter … heavenly. Oh yes, and being quite pleased with yourself tastes pretty good too.
I was lucky to have Maude join me in the baking. I don’t think it would have been such a delicious day had she not participated. Thankfully she was game and enjoyed the process.
Ingredients
- 4 cups of milk
- 2 packages of active dry yeast
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup molasses
- 1/4 cup soft unsalted butter
- 4 tsp salt
- 12 cups flour * I used half and half whole wheat and white bread flour.
Method
Dissolve Active Dry Yeast in warm water.
Then add milk.
Add sugar, salt, butter and molasses and combine.
Combine with four cups of flour.
Continue to mix in remaining flour one cup at a time
Mix well until smooth, elastic and full of bubbles. Fold under so there's a nice smooth ball of dough. Place in greased bowl and set to rest in a warm place and cover with tea towel.
Let rest for one hour. It should double in size.
After one hour punch down the dough, releasing the air.
Divide the dough and place in greased bread pans. Let rest for at least one more hour.
Again the dough should rise and double in size.
Brush with milk and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
Check to make sure the bread is done, if you have made larger loaves, then give them a little extra time in the oven.
*You’ll have to knead the bread … ” Maude was good to about 9 cups, then she needed some help.
*We also made rolls, just be sure to make them half the size you want them to be remembering that they will double in size before you put them in the oven where they will continue to rise. My buns needed another 10 minutes in the oven … they were giant!
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6 Comments
Juniper
January 20, 17:24uummm… how cute are they???
trixi rittenhouse
January 20, 18:52Who would have thought that this child (Heidi) who interrupted the carving of the Christmas turkey, the serving of mashed potatoes gravy and mushy brussels sprouts,
in the presence of great grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles
cousins and siblings for wont of peanut butter, cottage cheese and bread, would one day
be writing columns about the joys of cooking and eating responsibly.
Who knew?.
Goes to show, memories of celebrations, of meals cooked with love and shared with love
and one needn’t ever worry about those finicky eaters. They one day lick their plates clean and pass the magic on to the next generation. Nothing will ever taste better.
Aunt T
Grace
January 20, 22:53How cute is aunt Trixie?! And, love the name, too. You are adorable, too!!
xo
g
Heidi Pyper
January 21, 08:14Aunt T!
If anyone taught me the love and magic of food it would be you … never mind those crazy pjs, those were one for the books.
And G, Trixi is every bit the name would suggest.
Juniper when are you going to share a granola secret with the SPC team?
xoxoHeidi
Kendra
January 23, 23:22What a great post! I’ll have to send a note to your mom to thank her for sending me (via my mom) here.
Your kids are adorable – I love the photo of Maude kneading!
From a friend who also learned to make bread in the 70s,
Kendra (Rowe) Thompson
Dong
January 13, 20:48About Sahil: Sahil Faiz is a passionate blogger interested in writing about a range of exciting topics.
A person can sound really sincere, nice and harmless but might be rotten to the
core. The dater may tend to forget all about the characteristics or traits he or she looks for.