Home-made Bread

Bismillah (In the name of Allah)

Since the bread baking bug got in my kitchen I've been very busy. The first night, without having the necessary supplies, I could not wait and decided that I was going to make bread with what I had at hand. And, this came out of the spur of the moment:


          

It was good but, of course, I could not stop there. It was only the beginning of a very satisfying new season of my life: The bread making season.

Next day I went on a mission to stock up my kitchen with what I needed to make bread from scratch. Fresh organic wheat, more yeast, some spelt and rye, amongst other things. And, without hesitation I moved onto making whole wheat bread from freshly milled wheat.

           

It has been an amazing experience; not only baking these breads but feeding them to my family as well. They love it and I love giving them something so nutritious. Especially because I'm milling my own wheat, so it's fresh and it isn't stripped off anything; all the goodness of wheat goes into my loaves of bread.

Have you ever heard of Ezekiel bread? It's a recipe that has been interpreted from the bible. I made my own version of this bread as follows:

3 1/2 cup of hard wheat, 1/2 cup of (kidney beans, lentils, chick peas and spelt) and I'm planning on interchanging the legumes that I add to this mix, and possibly making it 1 cup instead of just 1/2. Will update when that happens, and at this rate it could be anytime within the next few days :o)

 Let me get back to my recipe. All gets milled and it yields approximately 6 cups of flour which I mixed with 2 1/2 cups of water, 1/4 cup of oil, 1/4 cup of honey, 1tbs of instant yeast, 1 tbs of wheat gluten, 1 tbs of salt. I kneaded this till smooth, by

hand I would guesstimate it could take 10 min approximately. I let my machine do the work, I know I'm spoiled! It should be ready when you can stretch a piece of it, without tearing it, and see light through it. Then I formed into loaves, placed in a warm place till they about doubled in size and baked at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 1/2 hour. I skipped one rise that typically takes place when making bread, but it worked for me and it saved me time.

This is what I've been doing in these cold days. Perhaps this is yet one more blessing that Allah brings along with winter; we spend more time indoors and become more creative and even take up on new interests.