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.
------------
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
