A Day of Baking
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I only have one class and typically play catch-up with all my work. This morning I took yearbook pictures with the whole get-up; cap, gown, fake diploma. Oh, how I wished it was the real thing. I felt so grown up, despite the fact that the last time I took posed pictures was for the high school yearbook 
After class, where I almost fell asleep, I ran by the grocery store for some tea and coffee. I decided a trip to the store was much more economical than getting one cup for the same price at a coffee shop. I’ve been out of coffee and tea for a week now and finally hit a breaking point. Oh tea, how I missed the.
When I got home, I set up camp at the kitchen table with my computer and study material, ready to bake my little heart out…and study in between.
I’ve been dying to make my own bread and finally had the time. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when I have class, I always bring a lunch. I make my own granola bars and decided, what the hay, I’ll just make my own bread too. I decided on honey wheat bread. Believe it or nuts, NONE of my cook books had a wheat bread recipe so I had to search the internet. The bread was easy to make but required a lot of time, mostly for rising.
Honey Wheat Bread
Yield: 2 Loaves or 1 Loaf, 1 Round and 6 Muffins
Recipe adapted form Vegweb
2 1/2 C. Warm water
3 C. Whole wheat flour
2 T. Yeast (or two packets)
1/2 C. Honey
1/4 C. Vegetable oil
1/4 C. Soy milk
3 1/4 C. Unbleached white flour
1 t. Salt
- Mix the warm water, yeast and 1 tablespoon of the honey together in a bowl. Pour in the 3 cups of wheat flour and mix until well incorporated. Cover the bowl with a towel and let sit in a dry place for 45 minutes. Original recipe said to let rise for at least 20 minutes.
- Pour and mix together the rest of the honey, oil, soy milk and salt.
- Add the white flour 1/2 a cup at a time and begin to kneed. It will get really dense after the 3rd cup, but keep at it. After kneading for a bit, the dough will be sticky again and you can add more flour.
- Knead for 10 minutes.
- Option 1: Score and shape into two loaves and place in 8.5″ x 4.5″ greased bread pans, or Option 2: 1 loaf, 6 rolls, 1 round or Option 3: 1 loaf, 24 rolls…etc.
- Cover pans with towel and allow the bread to rise for another hour and a half.
- Bake loaves at 350°F for 35 minutes. Bake rolls at 375°F for 20 minutes.
In pictures:
Add initial ingredients and cover…
Add the rest of the ingredients…
Knead the dough…
Score the dough…
After rising in bread pans and baking…
Cut for sandwiches…
Store…
I slightly over baked the bread, but it still turned out great. Half of this batch went to the freezer and half will be used for sandwiches over the next few days. Next time, I’m going to halve this recipe to only make one loaf. It was just too much bread for one person. That is my only complaint though.
The baking continued with chocolate chip cookies and a secret ingredient – mesquite flour. This stuff is AMAZING!! Its naturally sweet with cinnamon and chocolate flavors. I found it at our local specialty store. Swap 1 tablespoon of regular flour for mesquite flour and your cookies will be 100 x’s better. I made the Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson. This was the fourth time I made them and they have been a hit each time.
One of the full time lab technicians, a very nice older gentleman, has been helping my group with our experiments, so I decided to make appreciation cookies. The cookies be a good snack for the whole group while we run our experiment. They will be so happy 
What is your favorite kind of bread to bake? Do you have a favorite cookie recipe?
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