Homemade Bread. Yes you can do it!

Homemade Bread
Vegan, Dairy-Free, 

I was a doubter too.  Homemade bread?  Yeah right!  There is no way I can make bread....I don't have a bread machine!  And who has time to kneed and do what ever else you do to make bread!  Then about a year ago my friend Jasmeen introduced me to this amazingly simple recipe and I haven't looked back.

For about a year prior to this I had done my best to buy bread with minimal ingredients, but choices were very limited and prices were high.  I would suck it up and pay the $4.00-$6.00 for a loaf of bread knowing that my other option was to pay a significant amount less but get a lot "More". "More" meaning more processed ingredients and additives that I did not want to put into my or my family's bodies.  So I tried the recipe.  It was so easy and delicious, plus it made my house smell great!  Altogether it takes about 13 hours to make, but the actual hands on time is only about 5-10 mins.  The most important thing for me to remember is timing, but we will get to that later.

This is also a very versatile recipe. You can use different flours and add things in (ie rosemary and garlic, berries, cheese etc...)  The original recipe calls for all purpose flour, but the picture above and recipe below is a combination of organic all purpose white flour and spelt flour in my attempt to start to cut back a bit on our wheat intake.  I know there is a lot of opinions on wheat these days.  I am not going to go down that road today, but I will say that I plan on experimenting with different types of flour for different recipes, so look for more on this to come... Just as an FYI: spelt or whole wheat flours do make the bread a bit more dense and you may need a touch more water.

Try it out!  Make your own bread and leave a comment to let me know what you think or what kind of variation you tried!  Enjoy!  

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Organic all purpose flour
• 1 cup Spelt Flour
• 1/2 tsp active yeast (I buy the jar)
• 1 Tbs salt
• 1 1/2-2 cups warm water

Directions:

1. Activate 1/2 tsp yeast in 1/4 cup warm water, let sit for a couple of minutes.
2. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl.
3. Add activated yeast  to flour mixture.
4. Add 1 1/2 cups warm water to flour mixture.
5. Stir until dry ingredients are moist. (I found using a spatula works best).  If you need to add a little bit more water do it a little at a time, but not too much, you don't want it really wet.  
6. Cover bowl with saran wrap for about 12 hours.  I have done this in as little as 8 hours. Once I forgot and made it after the dough rested for 24 hours.  It has worked every time.  It just needs to rise, so don't get to worked up about how long you have it covered.  
7. After the 12 hours (or so) heat your oven to 450.  Once the oven is heated place a dutch oven (cast iron pot) with the lid on, in the oven for 30 mins. 
8. Take pot out of oven and place dough in the dutch oven (You don't need to worry about greasing the dutch oven the bread will come out easily at the end).   You may have to scrape it out a little.  Place dutch oven with lid on back in the oven for another 30 mins.  Things will start smelling very good quickly!
9. After 30 mins remove the lid (Don't forget the lid is hot!  Use pot holders!) and place back in the oven for another 12-15 mins.  You can also drizzle a little olive oil and salt  or cinnamon and sugar at this point before putting back in.  
10. Take out and enjoy!  

As a side note about the timing I mentioned before: I was a little intimidated with the "letting it sit for 12 hour thing" then baking it for an hour.  I work during the day so.... when was I going to bake it?  What I found  is that I will either try to make the dough the evening and let it sit over night.  Then heat up the oven with the dutch oven in it first thing when I get up.  Once I am showered and dressed I throw in the dough and the bread is done before I leave for the day.  Or I will mix the dough together first thing in the morning and make the bread that night when I get home.  It is very doable and worth the little bit of extra effort.

Why it's good for you:

As mentioned above it uses minimal ingredients and can be made a lot cheaper than minimally processed store bought bread.  Depending on what kind of flour you use and what you add to it, will vary the nutritional value as well.  Even better, it's way tastier than store bought bread!