Bread Baking

I've had several friends cross my path lately who are doing some serious bread baking.  Grinding their own wheat, using their freshly ground flour to form bread dough, then letting it rise and eventually baking it.  There was definitely a time when I thought these people were a little on the extreme side.  Why bake bread when you can just pick up a loaf at the grocery store?  Why go through all of that effort..and who can afford a wheat grinder?! 

  I have tried to just use wheat flour and bake my own bread.  Most of the time it ends up coming out really dense and everyone tastes it and then wants nothing to do with it. So it didn't take much for me to give up.  I've mentioned my desire to start moving towards some healthier alternatives.  With that desire has come repeated encounters with my bread baking friends.  I am convinced.  I want to be one of them.  I want to be a part of the bread baking community.  But I'm not there yet.  

I'm trusting God with some things right now.  If He wants me to include bread baking into my health journey, I'm all for it.  The trusting Him part comes with some serious provision.  I'm going to trust Him to provide the tools I need to do this or that He'll provide someone I can buy bread from.  As of right now we're still buying store bread, but I'm very ready to make a change.  It's killing me to wait and be patient for God to do what needs to be done.  I'm very much a take charge type.  But I think God is going to use bread to teach me more than one lesson.

A few weeks ago, after I had already been contemplating this bread thing, an old college roommate and I got back in touch and she was telling me all about how their family has been on a health journey the past 3 years.  She said that she had started baking her own bread, cutting sugar out of their diet, etc.  She and her family were passing through a nearby town, so we decided to meet up.  We had a great time and she was kind enough to bring me a loaf of her homebread and some delicious cookies that she made without traditional sugar.  My family LOVED both!  So much so that I wrote my friend and asked for her bread recipe.  If I start bread baking, this is the recipe I'm going to use.  It's delicious.  I asked her if I could share the recipe on here.  She said sure...so here it is!  Bread bakers enjoy! : )

Bread recipe (from Jamie Schroer)

Ingredients:

1 cup hard red wheat grains + 1 cup hard white wheat grains + 1 cup Kamut (all ground in grain mill)

1 1/2 cups water

 2 tsp Redmond real salt,

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup clover honey

 1 1/2 tbsp Instaferm yeast

Directions:

They go through preheating, kneading, rise 1, kneading, rise 2 (in a bread machine).  Then I divide the dough and put it on pan or in loaf pans to rise a third time. Bake at 350 for 32 min. This recipe is derived from the Breadbeckers basic dough recipe; tweaked and simplified.

Please keep me in your prayers as I wait for direction on baking bread myself!  : )  One thing I have seen over and over again on this journey is that God keeps providing and putting healthy options in our path. He is good! God bless!