Thursday, January 21, 2010

Homemade bread, the hard way

In my striving to be emergency prepared, I started thinking about buying whole wheat and grinding it myself. Last year I purchased a hand grinder (cheaper and less reliant on potentially non-existent power) and found a big sack of hard red wheat berries on sale at Walmart last month. I figured it would be better to practice making bread from hand-ground wheat before I actually needed to, so I gave it a whirl. The grinding was tougher than I thought it would be, but the breadmaking was easier.

Thankfully I had a bit of help grinding the wheat (actually, the whole family took turns and it took about 20 minutes to get six cups of flour). Electric grinders can be nearly $300, so it looks like my arms may be more toned by summertime.

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After grinding the wheat (I even threw some steel cut oats in there and made a bit of oat flour), I followed a basic wheat bread recipe. I didn't use loaf pans, so rolled it out (again with help) and made a roll out of each loaf.

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The recipe I used made two nice loaves, which were really tasty!
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The bread was pretty dense, as I used all wheat flour (and a little oat). For a lighter bread, next time I will use a little white flour along with the freshly ground wheat. Now I know I can make bread from scratch using freshly ground wheat, which is very satisfying. I also ground a little extra and am storing it in the freezer, and have been using it. It's a lot cheaper than buying whole wheat flour and contains a lot more bran, so I think it's better for you too.

4 comments:

  1. Awesome! I am inspired...my garlic toast I am making with dinner wont seem nearly as good tonight!

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  2. Yummy! This is an awesome blog, T--even for those of us weekend homemakers without kiddies (or at least without the human kind) :)

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  3. Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog. Yours is great too! We have friends who grind all their own flour. I haven't gone quite that far. After a lifetime of cooking, it's lost its luster, but when I do it I like it to be from scratch. That bread looks great. I love dense bread... there is actually something there to eat!

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    Wow... I just rolled over your swagbucs logo and discovered that you are my palsie, frogdoc. Well, hey! How in the world are you, besides busy grinding wheat and running out to a new job?

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