Almost No-Work Whole Grain Bread: The Result

It was good. Not great, but good. It has potential.

By the time the bread was ready to bake, the oven already held two chickens. So, I had to bake the bread on the top rack, which may have affected the final result...a bit dense, maybe a bit undercooked in the middle. But the flavor was decent, and I can see the potential in adding the other grains Bittman suggests.

After aging a day, the bread seems more like a quick bread, with the consistency of banana bread. The recipe does say this version doesn't rise very high, and mine certainly didn't after 24 hours. Then again, my house is cold this time of year, even the kitchen, so that may be part of the problem.

I will try this again for sure. It was almost no work.

Late to the Party...Bittman's Almost No-Work Whole Grain Bread

I've written before how hard it is to buy good bread with few additives and no nuts. Homemade bread is the obvious answer, but realistically it's more an occasional occurrence than a regular event.

But I do like to experiment with bread baking, and I'm finally going to try Mark Bittman's recipe in Food Matters. I'll be honest...I tried making his Hybrid Quick Bread, and it was a disaster. The kids wouldn't touch it, and I didn't like it very much, either. It was tough and had no flavor. Maybe I'll try it again, just to figure out what went wrong.

Anyway, I won't reprint the recipe for Almost No-Work Whole Grain Bread, but it's a 12-24 hour project (mostly just letting the dough sit around) and I started it today. I'll try to post part two tomorrow, but meanwhile, here's how the dough looks right after mixing (I cheated and gave it a knead or two, and I added a cup of cornmeal instead of the third cup of wheat flour):

Really Good Really Easy Dinner Rolls

The other night I made dinner rolls. Homemade dinner rolls. (Pat self on back--I was so excited.) The recipe came from Taste of Home: Honey-Oat Pan Rolls.

I know my way around a kitchen and can and will try to cook anything, but my dinner rolls have always been a disaster. I can make a decent loaf of bread and a good pizza crust, but something about turning dough into rolls has eluded me for years. They're either too hard or too doughy or look unappetizing. They almost always taste okay, if you love bread-y foods, but they never come close to store-bought brown-'n-serve style rolls.

One of the curses of becoming a label reader is realizing all the extra, unhealthy ingredients (like high fructose corn syrup) in simple bread products. (I wrote about trying to buy a healthier loaf of bread here.) I understand some ingredients keep items shelf-stable, but I worry about what all those preservatives are doing to our bodies. Enter home-made bread and rolls, at least occasionally.

The rolls even looked good. I forgot to brush them with melted butter, but we didn't even miss it. Not too sweet and with the addition of whole-wheat flour, these are definitely healthier than store-bought. You could probably even tweak them a bit with healthy additions like flaxseed, or try other grains like rye flour. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook, because I was rushing and didn't have the time or space to knead, so they were really easy to make.

I will definitely make these again.

A Decent Loaf of Bread

Why is it so difficult to find a decent loaf of bread? Why does store bread contain so many weird ingredients? Now that I'm into reading labels (and also to avoid nuts), I find myself disheartened in the bread aisle of most supermarkets. I've finally settled on Barowsky's Organic Breads, not because they're organic, but because I can pronounce most of the ingredients. Too bad they're so expensive (about $4.00-5.00 a loaf).

If we didn't have to worry about the nut issue, I could probably get bread at a decent bakery. Although I do not live in a city, there are some chain bakeries around.

Another option would be to get a bread machine and make my own. I haven't gone that route yet, mostly because while I do enjoy baking, if I had to do it, I would tire of it rapidly. While being self-sufficient sounds romantic, I'm sure it's exhausting. Also, I don't really have the counter space to house another appliance.

However, I have enjoyed baking the Easier No Knead Bread, especially in the winter. There's a whole grain version available in Mark Bittman's new book Food Matters that I will probably try this week.