Canadian Living: Country Seed Bread

Turkey and Veggie Cheese on Country Seed Bread

My dear friend, MacD, who is the author of Knitting This, had a recent homemade bread blogpost from a website called Smitten Kitchen! The recipe looked so delectable, but a few of the ingredients we didn't have (namely the powdered milk--anytime we buy powdered milk, it doesn't hang around the house long because Hubbie *hearts* making his Mom's famous Peanut Butter Candy with it.) I am also one of these people that feels if you have to make a special trip to the store for ingredients for homemade bread, then really, what's the point? Especially when a few bread heels could be dug out of the fridge and used if someone really craved a sandwich that bad. :O)

In the reviews of this homemade bread she found was a mention of country seed bread recipe at Canadian Living. So i thought i would give it a try today. That's what i am doing now...waiting for bread to rise....maybe instead of computin' i should be doing some laundry or something so i would really actually be accomplishing something like the housewives of the 20's and 50's, eh?

Here's the link to the bread if you'd like to try it yourself. I'll post pictures later of my rendition.

Canadian Living: Country Seed Bread

Baking Notes:

1. I used dry active yeast from the jar and warmed my water. I am not really sure what "instant" yeast is.

2. I used my trusty Kitchen Aid stand mixer to do all the kneeding for me. Half way through the 8 minutes of kneeding, it was evident that i needed to sprinkle a little of that optional 1/4 cup of flour in the bowl to get the dough to start sticking to itself rather than the mush in the bowl that it was. I ended up using 1/8 cup total.

3. I didn't have any poppy seeds today, so we'll see how it will come out. If nothing else, whomever eats my bread this week, will still be able to pass a drug test. :o) hee hee

4. I try not to use veggie oil--we are a house with many oils, but veggie is not one (except when it's homemade playdough making season.) I decided to forgo the olive oil and try the high heat tolerant sunflower oil.

This is the first time i've had my homemade bread actually resemble bakery bread results! It's not too too dense and it's got a nice moist texture. Even slices like a dream when it was warm!

Today i learned another valuable lesson or two!

1. The second time your bread needs to rise is not a time to hang around the kitchen, because it is in fact just enough time to whip out one of these that you truly don't need (especially if you are eating bread.) :o)

Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Chocolate Cake with Hershey's Chocolate Frosting

Note: i didn't devour 1/4 of the cake all myself...Ri and Mike helped too. ;o)

2. Also, when it's time to frost a cake, it's not a good time to be talking to your uncle who's describing to you how he and your aunt just devoured this chocolately brownie cookie with Reese's peanut butter chips in it. You know why? Because then you start thinking to yourself, "By George, i think he's on to something. I'll spread peanut butter on the first cake, top it with the second and then frost the entire thing with chocolate frosting!" And because you are the type of cook who likes there to be uniformity, or a roundness, so to speak, to your cake flavours, you top the thing with peanut M&M's, for goodness sake! As if the cake itself didn't have enough calories, but you were convincing yourself that a small piece wouldn't be "that bad" of a dessert because it is a whole grain cake afterall--you know the kind...they taste more like whole wheat out of the flour sack than they do chocolate?! But now you've just ruined your arguement by slathering it with peanut butter and adding M&M's. Sheesh! Uncles...you can't live with them...and you shouldn't talk to them when it's dessert night. :o) hee hee