Graced with Grace

Hi Friends, So I just realized that many of my readers may not realize that I actually have a baking blog, too. Now this baking blog actually does not get used very much, but occasionally a story or recipe will make its way to publication, so if you're interested than you can check it out. Here is a link to my latest blog post over there telling a short little story of baking bread with children. http://hanasmessykitchen.blogspot.com/2015/06/bread-baking-and-child-joy.html  

Recently I wanted to make some healthy bread, but we didn't have any whole wheat flour, so I thought maybe I could make oat bread with ground oats as my flour. My mom found a recipe for me in our cook book called “Jane Brody’s Good Food Book”. The recipe is found on page 572 and is called Richard’s Best Bread. I used that recipe as my guide, but added several things and altered the recipe a bit. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it was delicious and my mom wanted me to write out what I did, so we could try it again some time. So here it is. ;).  Hannah’s Everything Bread 2 cups milk, scalded 1/3 cups vegetable oil 1/3 cup honey 2 teaspoon salt ½ cup water 2 tablespoons yeast ½ teaspoon sugar 2 beaten eggs 2 ½ cups oats, ground in blender to a floury consistency (+ ½ cup oats not ground) ½ cup bran flakes crushed lightly ½ cup unprocessed wheat bran ¾-1 cup cornmeal pancake mix (optional, use only if you have some that yo...

Here is the long awaited bread recipe that I told you about awhile ago. I hope you get a chance to try it out and like it as much as we do. God bless! Whole Wheat Bread In Bosch mixer bowl with dough hook place the following: 5 ½ cups water (130 degrees) ½ cup oil 1 cup brown sugar 2 Tbsp. Dough enhancer (optional) 1 cup gluten (optional) 2 Tbsp. Salt 8 cups flour Using spring switch on machine, fold flour into liquids gently until all flour is moistened. Turn to speed 1 and blend for about 1 minute. Add: 3 Tbls. Dry active yeast (or 2 ½ Tbls. Instant yeast) 3 cups more flour (milled above) and fold in. (At this point I usually let dough sit for 7 minutes) Turn to speed 1 and while machine is running, add enough more flour to form a soft dough that is beginning to pull away from sides of bowl slightly (about 4 more cups for a total of about 15 cups of flour). When dough is as described above, time for 10 minutes, and knead on speed 1. Dough will ...

Note: This is not really how we do the first day of fall, but simply a creative way of writing to combine some of my favorite things about fall. Also, this is concentrating on the indoor aspects of fall.   I awoke to the sound of the crackling fire down stairs with its light flickering across the wall. I hastily got dressed for the day and ran down the stairs to warm by the fire with a blanket, a hot cup of tea, and my Bible. Today is the first day of fall and I couldn’t wait to begin our traditional first-day-of-fall cooking. Coffee cake was to be our breakfast, as always, and then we would begin. You can’t have fall without pies, breads, and pastries. A bushel of apples sat in a basket ready to cut. A number of us would set to work cutting apples, while others would make our all time favorite pie crust, roll it out and put it in pie pans. With lots of members in my family, the work always goes smoothly and is sure to be lots of fun. I could just imagine the arom...

Homemade Bread! It's the best when it is straight out of the oven and the butter just melts on to the bread. So delicious! Maybe I should share my bread recipe with ya'll. Is anybody interested in it? It is really easy and makes 4 loaves.

Hand-kneaded Bread One day I decided that I was going to try hand-kneading my bread. I had made bread in our Bosch mixer numerous times and it always turned out well.  I felt quite confident that I could hand-knead the dough and it would still turn out just fine. So I pull out a recipe book and start flipping through till I come to the section about hand-kneading your bread. I read through it quickly, thinking I got it all down. Every thing goes well, and I finally start kneading the bread. I kneaded it till it looked smooth and elasticity, just as it said and then let it rise. It rose wonderfully. It seemed to be working quite well. I was pretty proud of my self. “Who says Hand-kneading is hard” I thought to myself as I puffed up with self glorification. Nevertheless, when all had been said and done, I pull out the bread from the oven and it was all sunk in (I, of course, blamed it on my sisters for being to wild and jumping), to my great distress. When I told my mom tha...

      Thank you very much all of you who left a comment sharing one of your kitchen stories. I enjoyed them all very much and any one who didn’t have a chance to share yours, please feel free to do so on this post or on part 1 . I look forward to reading them.       Now for a couple of my stories, which I hope you will enjoy very much and get a good laugh over. Bean Bread       One day as I was making some bread, my mom was cleaning out our refrigerator. Then my mom came upon some bean sprouts that had been sitting in there for quite awhile. Therefore, she suggests to me that I put them in the bread. I was a good bit skeptical of that idea, thinking it would be utterly nasty, but mother assures me that people do make bread with that kind of bean sprout and that it is quite good, so in go the bean sprouts. Lets just say that those four loaves of bread lasted a very long time and when ever possible we girls would do our best to ...

The Best Cinnamon Rolls Cinnamon raisin rolls with frosting Dough: ½ cup warm water (105-110 degrees) 2 pkgs. Active Dry Yeast, 2 scant Tbsp. 2 tbsp. sugar 1 3.5oz. Pkg. instant vanilla pudding ½ cup butter, melted 2 eggs, beaten 1 tsp. salt 8 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup butter, melted, to be used when putting rolls together Filling: 2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed (or your choice of sweetener) 4 tsp. Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting: 1 8oz. cream cheese, softened ½ cup butter, softened 1 tsp. vanilla 3 cups powdered sugar 1 tbsp. milk, just enough to fluff Combine all ingredients and mix until smooth. In a small bowl, combine water, yeast, and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. In the large bowl, make pudding mix according to package directions. Add butter, eggs, and salt; mix well. Add the yeast mixture; blend. Gradually add flour and knead until smooth, adding “sprinklings” of flour as needed to control stickiness. Once the dough is no longer sticky and is soft and silky ...