a simple real food recipe :: homemade bread

I can’t think of anything more pleasant than the smell of freshly baked bread.

Well maybe eating the bread smothered in real butter is slightly (or way more!) pleasant.I have been working on bread recipes for what seems like years. It really has only been a couple. But in bread making…oh the finicky-ness of it!

Let me just take the guess work out of it for you and show you how easy this is 🙂A very dear friend of mine called me up one day last year completely giddy that she had found 2 bread machines at a re-sale shop for $6 each. Oh my how well my close friends know me!

I grabbed that puppy up and have been playing around with it for a while now. I have tried every gluten free recipe known to man – including playing around with each one’s recipe to try to get it to work just right. I am a total failure at gluten free bread! BUT the more I work with soaked wheat or soaked spelt bread the more I am discovering just how easy this grain is to digest when properly prepared. (AND when you have spent a period of time, as I did, OFF grains to heal gut issues. If you struggle with digesting grains PLEASE start a convo at the bottom – I would love to share with you my experience. You don’t have to live like that – and you don’t have to be off grains forever in my experience. Little bit of time to heal and then start over again using grains in the proper way!)

If you don’t have a bread machine, you may knead and punch down 2 times and then bake it off in your oven.

Anyway! Onto the bread!

You’ll need:

2 cups unbleached whole wheat flour (I use a refrigerated stone ground wheat from the bulk section at our health food store. Or you could use King Arthur)

1 1/4 cup unbleached bread flour (Again, I use the bulk refrigerated at my health food store or you could use King Arthur)

1 cup warm filtered water

2 TB melted butter

3 TB apple cider vinegar

3 TB sunacat (raw sugar) or organic pure cane sugar

1 ½ TB organic instant yeast

1 ½ tsp sea salt

1. Warm the water in a pot and add the butter to melt it.
2. Add the water and melted butter to a bowl with the flours and apple cider vinegar.
3. Knead into a ball and place in the bowl with a towel over top and a plate on top to keep it from drying out. Place the bowl under the light in your oven to stay warm for 12-24 hours. This is the soaking process that reduces the phytic acid in the grain so it can digest well.
4. After 12-24 hours put the dough in your bread maker along with the sugar, yeast, and sea salt and run your machine. I use the light whole wheat setting on mine.

Kitchen Tips:

1. I have found if the bread is sinks for you, there was too much moisture – you can back off on the water next time if you want. Kind of depends on the air where you live. I still sometimes get one that will sink a little bit – it’s still good to eat. I would say 9 times out of 10 it works just perfect 🙂 If you are a bread making connoisseur – please educate us on why this happens and how we can avoid it!!!
2. If I don’t think we are going to go through the bread in a week I will store it in the fridge to extend the shelf life. No toxic preservatives in this bad boy 😉
3. I would TOTALLY be getting THIS bread machine if I had the chance! So many great settings – including a gluten free setting – I wonder if that would help my gluten free bread making efforts… 🙂
4. 

YOUR TURN!

Let me know what you think!!!

This post was shared at Real Food Freaks Freaky Friday, The Polivka Family’s Family Table Tuesday, and Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday!