BREADEQUETTE!

Kim's Buttermilk Honey Egg Bread

1 cup Buttermilk              

5 Tblspns canola oil         

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup raw honey

5 cups bread flour

2 eggs

Proofing  yeast

1/4 cup warm water (warmer than body temperature)

1 tsp sugar (or honey)

1 scant tblespn yeast.

My process:

I use a breadmaker to make the bread dough.

So the process goes like this.

1.  Put 1 cup buttermilk in pan on stove to warm.

2.  Proof yeast: put warm water in small bowl with sugar or honey. add yeast  mix and allow to proof.

3. All wet type ingredients go into the breadmaker pan (and wet-solvent ingredients) (except egg)

so that would be:

  1 cup warm buttermilk

1 tsp kosher salt

1/4  cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

6 tblespns canola oil

Then on top of that:

5 cups bread flour

1 egg (beaten)

proofed yeast mixture

I set the breadmaker on "dough" setting.  I check as it is mixing to make sure it doesn't need more moisture, or that it needs more bread flour.

The "dough" setting on the breadmakers I've used mix, knead and rise the bread dough.

When it's finished will all of those processes (about 2 hours),

I divide the dough into two loaves. I allow my bread to rise (again) in a slightly warm oven (I turn on the heat at 175 for a very few moments and then turn off heat).

I allow the bread to rise until it doubles in size. Sometimes that's 1/2 hour (usually) sometimes it's up to 1 hour.

After it rises once more, I beat the other egg with a little bit of water to make an egg wash.

I remove the bread from the over and set the oven on 350 to preheat.

I brush the bread top with the egg wash and set in to bake for 1/2 hour.

When the bread is baked, I remove loaves from the bread pans and set them to cool.

I let them cool AT LEAST one hour before I put them in some sort of bag.

The best bags are paper bags. However, I rarely have them, so usually a zip-lock bag is what I put the loaves in.

Some tips:

I have two "favorite" bread pans (loaf pans) that I use all the time. They are glass.

DO NOT cut the loaves before the hour rest time (out of the oven is over).

The loaves collapse.

When we deliver a loaf to someone, I try to remember to tell them: EAT THIS NOW.

This bread (and any bread I make) --except for the sugar and salt--has no preservatives.

So it doesn't keep well.

If you have any left the next day, it IS really good for french toast, however.

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Some background on this recipe:

 Some people remember a company called DAK. They were responsible for bringing the first "breadmakers" into the United States.

DAK was a pre-cursor to "Sharper Image" and had many electronics one could order via mail.

The first breadmakers were created in Japan.

Drew (Allen Kaplan---aka DAK) wrote enthusiastically  about his love of "toast" and that was why he wanted to make his own bread.

I think it was in mid to late 1980's, that my family received this catalogue to sell two models of this breadmaker.

This breadmaker produced a round loaf, and the breadmaker looked a little like Star Wars R2D2.

However, in the catalogue delivered was actually in the form of a recipe book. Each recipe ended with the catch phrase "mix all ingredients and allow to rise-- be occupied with watching your bread for 4 hours...OR--throw ingredients in your breadmaker and two hours later you have BREAD!".

It was very compelling and honestly, I could almost smell the bread baking as I read the recipes.

Drooling for years over the $300 and $250 breadmaker, that I really wanted and never believed I would actually own, I kept the recipe book. I did actually use some of the recipes.

The recipe for this egg-bread was developed from a recipe from this catalogue/recipe book.

 The first breadmaker I ever owned was a "Wellbuilt" model  which was bought for me as a Christmas gift by my (then) husband, upon my request from K-Mart (where my mother worked) during one of their sales. I think it was $79. It made a 1 lb loaf. I made bread in that breadmaker for 2 years (or more). Until, one day, I couldn't get the bread pan out of the machine. The pan had super-heated to the unit, and welded to the machine. (sighs).

But I remembered that DAK machine, which had been my first breadmaker love.

A decade (and a husband) later, my husband and I were perusing a second- handstore (more like a warehouse) and there it was. I almost felt like the father from Christmas Vacation finding their live Christmas tree. It was like a celestial light fell on the Breadmaker, and an angelic choir was in-toning the chord "Ta-da!".

This DAK breadmaker was only $50. Amazing piece, that , until earlier this year, I used a great deal to bake bread.

Oddly, this passion for bread-making and bread-makers gave way to my collecting bread making books and breadmakers (mostly second-hand, or previously loved bread-makers). I found some of these at the Good Will and other thrift stores.

I have two other things to share with you that my passion has brought into my life.

First, after reading a great amount of reviews of breadmakers, I developed a new love.

I read about a Zoyjarushi breadmaker, which came in several  models.  The reviews were fabulous, and it made a standard loaf-shaped loaf. I wanted another 1lb loaf maker for making sample loaves and just for Walt and I in our own home. But Zoyarushi also had a model that made a 2-2 1/2  lb loaf as well.

This model was also amazingly expensive. $300 and up for this breadmaker.

However, a few years later, what did I find in our CITA Thrift shop? a Zoyjirushi  1 lb model.  All of the parts were there, and it cost me $5. Found another model Zoyirushi, 2 1/2 lb model, same Cita Thrift Store, a few months later, same price.

One of the good things about this happening at this time is that one can find the user manuals online for specific models of appliances. So I even have user manuals for these breadmakers.

Another element that I would offer,  is that a breadmaker, the smell of baking bread was a sign for Walt and I that we had found our home church.   We had not been attending Emmanuel United Methodist church in Melbourne very long, before World Communion Sunday was on the calendar. I walked into our sanctuary and smelled that familiar fragrant smell of baking bread. Our pastor had arranged for someone to bake bread  in the sanctuary (on holy ground) for World Communion Sunday.  I walked up to a familiar breadmaker and realized we were home.

 A last bit of information in this, too long ,missive.

Bread-making has become a very important aspect of Walt and my ministry to people, all kinds of people.  A book on bread-making coined the term "Breadequitte"  to which I latched on.

The concept is very simple and neighborly. Breadequitte is the idea, that since one is going to the effort of making bread anyway, made enough for two loaves.  So that when you make the bread, you have one loaf to keep, and one to share with a neighbor or friend--or new friend.

When I make bread, I often know to whom the second loaf is going, and think of them as I shape the loaf and bake it.

Until next time,

Eat something delicious

and live a life worth loving.

-Kim