Do we need to buy anything before the hurricane? With a bread machine in the house? No.

Hurricane Sandy closed down the Federal Government on Monday and Tuesday in Washington, D.C., as well as the bus and subway service.  Dear Husband and I stayed home those two days also.  DH asked me over the weekend if we should join the stampede to the grocery store but we decided not to--we had water, eggs, milk, toilet paper, and enough food to last a couple of days except bread.

I have mentioned in previous posts that I love my bread machine and with one in the house, as long as you have electricity you can have bread. Sunday I made half-whole wheat bread, which more than lasted us through yesterday, when we finally did lose power for 3 hours.  Today the power is back, and Sweet Potato Half-Whole Wheat Bread is kneading in the machine. BTW, we almost never bake the loaf in the machine because it's a funny shape and the crust is too hard.  We shape the dough, put it in a regular bread pan, then bake it in the oven.  You only need a basic model bread machine if you use it like this--essentially as a kneading machine.  (You can get one at WalMart for about $40.)

The whole wheat bread recipe is mine, from trial and error over many years.  The sweet potato bread is a recipe adapted from the Irish Potato Bread recipe in Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg & Lois Conway.  I use (much) less salt, sometimes cut the water by 1/4 cup and put in an egg, substitute mashed sweet potato for the potato, and brown sugar for the white sugar.

The recipes for both breads follow:

Half-Whole Wheat Bread from the bread machine

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water (may need more later; see *note)
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (we like King Arthur brand)
1/4 cup dry milk powder
2 tablespoons canola oil or melted butter (see second **note)
2 tablespoons honey or molasses (can use more honey but decrease water by an equal amount)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt (depends on your taste)
1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast

Put all ingredients in the bread machine in the order specified in your manual.  Process on dough mode.  Grease (or spray with oil from a Misto sprayer) a 9" x 5" bread pan.  Flatten the dough to approximately 9" x 12" with your hands or a rolling pin, then roll it up like a jelly roll.  Place in pan and allow to rise until doubled (1/2 hour to 1 hour, depending on the weather and how warm your kitchen is).  Preheat oven to 375F.  Bake the bread 35 minutes.  Cool slightly (10 minutes?) then tip the loaf out of the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.  Try not to cut the loaf until it is cool, because it tears.

*note: You have to get used to looking at your dough in the machine to see if it needs more water or more flour.  Once the kneading really gets going, the dough should make a smooth ball.  If it is a rough ball (or won't cohere into a ball at all), you need more water.  Add it a tablespoon at a time until you get the ball shape.  You can also tell if there is not enough water if the bread machine sounds like it's working too hard.  If the dough is gooey and won't shape into more than a flattened ball, you need more flour.  Add it a tablespoon at a time until the dough looks right.

**note: It's very convenient to measure the oil first (a coffee measure is 2 tablespoons, or eyeball half a quarter-cup measure); then the honey slides right out.  If you want to use butter, and your butter is even a little soft, you can put it directly in the machine without melting it.  Just measure the 2 tablespoons then cut in smaller pieces before you add them. 

Sweet Potato Half-Whole Wheat Bread
(photo will be added when the bread is done)

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons water OR
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons water and one egg
1/3 cup mashed sweet potato
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (we like King Arthur brand)
1/4 cup dry milk powder
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

Follow the same instructions as above.

***note: if you want white bread from either of these recipes, you can just use all bread flour.  You will probably need to cut the water back by 2 tablespoons.

SOY-FREE CONSIDERATIONS:
none.

Panera Has an Asiago Loaf That is Out of This World

And soy-free.

Recipe: Hawaiian Bread

Adapted from a recipe found on the internet (don't remember source) after I came home from a trip to Hawaii where I could not try the great-looking breads in the hotel.

Very good in a sandwich with chicken salad!

Hawaiian Bread
makes one 1 1/2-pound loaf

3 cups bread flour
1 egg
1 yolk (save white)
1/2 cup pineapple tidbits with juice (1 snack pack serving)
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
3 Tbsp butter, cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp dry yeast

Put all the ingredients in the bread machine pan in the order recommended in your manual. Process on dough mode. When the dough is ready, shape into a ball and put on a pizza pan that has been greased or lined with parchment paper. [Alternatively, pat into a 9" by whatever" rectangle, roll up like a jelly roll, and put into a greased 9" x 5" loaf pan.]

Let rise until doubled. Take the reserved egg white, beat it a little with a fork, then brush it over the bread. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

SOY-FREE CONSIDERATIONS:
none, if you make sure you grease your bread pan with canola oil or palm shortening. No PAM!

Recipe: Oatmeal Honey Bread

Oatmeal Honey Bread
makes one 1 1/2-pound loaf

3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup water
1 egg
3 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp canola oil [* see note below]
1/4 cup honey [wild flower honey is good in this]
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast

Place all the ingredients in the pan in the order recommended in your manual. Process on dough mode. Grease a 9" x 5" bread pan by putting a little oil in the bottom, then spreading it around with a pastry brush or a piece of waxed paper wrapped around your fingers.

Flatten the dough by hand on a floured board to a rectangle about 9 inches long by any width. Roll up like a jelly roll and place in the greased pan. Let rise until doubled, 1/2 hour to an hour.

Bake at 375F for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool in pan 5 minutes, then remove and finish cooling on a rack.

* note: after you measure the oil, put it in a 1/4 cup measure and swirl it around. Dump into the bread machine pan, then measure the honey in the 1/4 cup measure. This helps the honey come out.

SOY-FREE CONSIDERATIONS:
none

Six-day Weekend, Five Loaves of Bread

25 December: Finnish Coffee Braid
26 December: Oatmeal-Honey Bread
27 December: Hawaiian Bread
28 December: none
29 December: All-Whole Wheat Bread
30 December: Sesame Semolina

Finnish Coffee Braid
recipe from mom, who got it from a college friend
we usually had this for Christmas breakfast
adapted for the bread machine
makes 2 small loaves

3 cups bread flour
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup soft butter
5 whole cardamom pods, seeds removed and pounded with a mortar and pestle, or whirled in a coffee grinder
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast
1/3 cup quartered candied cherries
scant 1/4 cup raisins
sugar for sprinkling
chopped almonds for sprinkling

Put all the ingredients up through the yeast in the pan of the bread maker in the order specified in the manual. Process on dough mode. If you have a raisin "beep", put the candied cherries and raisins in then. If not, knead them in when the dough is done.

Put parchment paper on a baking sheet. [I like the two-layer kind with the air between for bread.] Divide the dough in half, then each half into thirds. Spin each third between your palms until you have a rope about 12" long. Lay out the ropes parallel to each other and braid, tucking the ends under. Repeat with the other 3 ropes. Let raise until doubled.

Brush each loaf with slightly beaten egg. Sprinkle with sugar [coarse sugar is pretty] and chopped almonds. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes.

note: check the dough in the bread machine after it has mixed for a while. If it is really gummy, add a tablespoon or so of flour. If it is dry and lumpy, and the motor seems to be working to hard, add a tablespoon or so of water.

SOY-FREE CONSIDERATIONS:
none

Hooray for the bread machine, part 3: Almond Braid

Well, we are on a bread kick, apparently. An old friend of mine from my graduate school days is in town and she came this morning for coffee. She offered to bring doughnuts, but if they don't have soy flour in them (like Dunkin Donuts) they are fried in soy oil. So that's out. I made one of my husband's favorite coffee cakes. It's reminiscent of an almond danish:

Almond Braid

3/4 cup milk (skim is fine)
1 egg
2 Tbs butter
1/2 8-oz can almond paste (or 1/2 7-oz tube)*
2 1/2 cups bread flour
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast

1.) Put all the ingredients in the bread machine in the order called for in the machine's manual. Process on "dough" mode.
2.) On a floured board, pat the dough into a rectangle and cut in thirds. Roll each third into a long rope, about 18 inches. On a cookie sheet lined with parchement or buttered foil, braid the three ropes together, pinch the ends, and tuck under.
3.) Bake at 375F for 25 minutes. When cool, glaze (see below).

Almond Glaze
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 tsp almond extract
1-2 Tbs milk
sliced almonds

Measure the confectioner's sugar in a one-cup measure and leave it in the cup. Add the extract and let it melt a hole into the sugar. A little at a time, add the milk, stirring until the glaze is thin enough to spread but not runny. Spread it over the braid, and sprinkle with the sliced almonds.

* Save the other half in the freezer. You'll want to make this bread again.

Hooray for the bread machine

Soy-free bread is problematical. Most of the breads on the bread aisle have soy oil. Most tortillas are out, too, unless you can find an honest-to-god fat-free one, and they are scarce. As a result, our fajitas are usually served in whole-wheat pita. Pita's usually okay.

The good news is, supermarkets are starting to sell more upscale bread in their bakery departments and they are often soy-free. My local “GIANT” sells a brand it buys frozen and bakes in the bakery. The multigrain has soy (check every label, every time) but the Italian, sourdough, country rye, semolina sesame, and olive/rosemary are all fine. Our local Whole Foods also carries several kinds of soy free bread. The bad news is, these upscale loaves are expensive. You also have to slice them yourself at home, because the slicers at the store might be contaminated from previous products.

English muffins continue to be a problem. None sold in the supermarket are soy-free. Whole Foods used to sell a Whole Foods brand that was okay, but they changed the recipe (check every label, every time). Trader Joe’s brand (“British Muffins”) is fine--for now--and they have whole-wheat.

Hotdog and hamburger rolls are impossible. We often buy “French rolls” at Safeway and use them for hamburgers but they’re not too substantial. I have not found any hotdog rolls I can use. I finally bought at hotdog roll pan from the King Arthur Flour catalogue and make them at home, when I can’t stand putting a hotdog on regular bread anymore.

Which brings me one of the best inventions of the 20th century: the bread machine. I am on my third machine right now. We only use it to make dough, then shape the dough and bake it in the oven. We use a potato bread recipe, like the one that came with the King Arthur hotdog roll pan, for hotdog and hamburger buns. (If you want your potato bread to be yellow like the supermarket loaves, add 1/16th tsp of turmeric.) For hamburger buns, just divide one pound of dough into sixths, or 1½ pounds into eighths, shape into balls, and squish flat on a parchment-covered cookie sheet. Let rise until doubled, and bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.

Because we only make dough, we don’t care what brand of machine we use, or how many bells and whistles it has. This latest machine cost around $40 at WalMart, and it works just fine, although the pan is not as heavy as the ones in our earlier, more expensive machines. It even has a “beep” for when to put in raisins, which the other two didn’t.

Bread machine books abound, and recipes are all over the internet, but I have found that I can make almost any bread recipe in the bread machine if I scale it right. A pound of dough uses 2 to 2 ¼ cups of flour, and cooks in an 8”x4” pan. A pound-and-a-half loaf takes 3-3 1/2 cups of flour, and uses a 9”x5” pan. My defunct Panasonic machine’s manual recommended 7/8 cup liquid for 2¼ cups flour and that works for most recipes, although if you add whole-wheat flour, you need a full cup. I am still working out the proportions for larger loaves.

We have several favorite bread machine books. Donna Rathmell German published at least 6 Bread Machine Books through Nitty Gritty Press. (Full disclosure—one of my recipes is in Bread Machine 6.) We also like Bread Machine Magic by Linda Rehberg & Lois Conway.

Because it is basil season, I am including my recipe for Pesto Bread. My brother tasted this at our house, and went out and bought a bread machine the next week.

Pesto Bread

2 ¼ cups bread flour (see note)
¼ cup pesto, home-made or commercial
1 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt (less if the pesto contains salt)
1 cup water
1 1/4 tsp yeast

Put the ingredients in the machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Process on dough mode. When the dough is ready, roll out about ½” thick, roll up like a jellyroll, and put in a greased 8”x4” bread pan. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

Note: You can substitute 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 tbsp gluten powder for one of the cups of bread flour. Any whole-wheat flour works, but we favor King Arthur.