Our Daily Bread

This is what I use to make our bread, that we use daily. We use it for breakfast, sandwiches for school lunches and whatever else. It makes three loaves. I adapted my technique and recipe from the book "Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day" , which by the way I love this book!

Using a clean large ice cream container works great for mixing and storing the bread. Put the yeast in and add 3 cups og warm water. *Warm enough to hold your finger in.

Add in the oil, once the yeast has dissolved.

  Add salt and sugar

Add your healthy ingredient. I used wheat germ, but I've also added instead: wheat bran, or oatmeal, or ground flax seed. No one will even be able to tell that its in there, except you.

Then the flour.

Mix with a spoon. Your hand will get sticky but no worries just mix it back into the dough. The dough should be quite sticky but not too wet that it has no form. Cover with the lid or plastic wrap or clean towel. Put in a warm place until it has doubled. This could take an hour or more. I usually turn the oven on for a minute to warm it up, turn it off and leave the dough to rise in there.

Take the cover off, see nicely risen dough.

Sprinkle some flour on top, to ease the handling of the dough.

Grab what looks to be one third of the dough.

And shape it into an oval to fit your three, greased loaf pans. Gently pull the side down. Think of it like wrapping a gift. You want the top to look nice and the edges fold to the bottom.

Once they are evenly divided, formed and placed in the pans, sprinkle a little flour on top. Covered with your towel or plastic wrap, again. Rise again for about an hour or until they have risen to your liking. Pre-heat the oven to 350 and bake about 25 min.
Now I'll tell you a mistake I made this time, I was multi-tasking (which can be dangerous for me sometimes) ...(not kidding ) I thought I'd make some English muffins as well. So they were about ready to go in the oven, time to preheat the oven for them. So I did that...while my bread was rising in the oven covered in a towel. Lets just say I'm glad I thought of it before the towel burst into flames! No, it did get really hot, 'cause I smelt the bread starting to bake and the smell of fresh laundry came out of the oven when I opened the oven door! I scared myself, but thankful nothing worse happened. Well needless to say be careful while multi-tasking. And maybe don't take my advice on letting the dough rise in the oven. HE HE HE.

Funny thing though, my honey tells me after work yesterday that, that was the best bread I've made! No kidding!

We ought to hear at least one little song every day, read a good poem, see a first-rate painting, and if possible speak a few sesible words.
-Goethe

...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable- if anyting is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things.
Philippians 4:8