Bread Baking Day (by Beth Wiebe)

Bread baking day! Baking bread with fresh ground wheat grown on our farm has put the fun into baking bread. It’s a lot more nutritious for one thing. And another thing is there is no sugar added. Honey is a great natural sweetener. One of our favorites is Honey Oat bread out of the Prairie Flour cookbook. It’s a soft loaf hardly needing anything on it. First of all, it’s time to grind the wheat berries. We personally like the hard white berries for this recipe. As the grinder is running, mix the rest of the ingredients except the flour and yeast. Once the flour is ground, I have found that to weigh out the flour in grams is more accurate than measuring it in cups. Adding the yeast and flour, I am now ready to knead the dough. I knead for about 8-10 minutes. I know when I am done when I can use the windowpane test method. I am attaching a picture of that for reference. Note that it doesn’t tear but instead it stretches and you can almost see through it. Now it’s ready to rise. Rising takes about 20 minutes in a warm place. Sometimes placing the bowl in a sink of warm water to help it rise. Form into three loaves is what I usually do. During the rising I have the oven heating to 375*. Once doubled in size I slide the pans into the hot oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Another very helpful tip I have learned is to use an instant read thermometer. The bread needs to be 180* in the center.  Remove the loaves from the oven placing on the cooling racks. Once cool enough to touch, slice a piece and enjoy. If the children are coming home from school right then, there’s no urging to have them try some!