Hobbits In Rivendell

For those who’ve heard me talk about baking bread and don’t really want to “wing it,” here’s what I basically end up doing when I bake “sandwich” bread, or non-savory bread. If you want a savory bread, you’re looking for the recipe at Barley Boules, which can also have olives added to it & give you olive bread. The recipe below is for people who shy away from true Whole Wheat bread; if you want (and I do), you can simply swap Whole Wheat for the White flour & you’ll be OK.

Basic Everyday Bread:

• 4C water
• 2C whole wheat flour
• 2C white flour
• 1C Quinoa flour (optional, but recommended)
• 2C Flax Seeds (I use golden, but it doesn’t matter except in appearance: dark seeds make mottled looking bread)
• 1/2C Oat Bran
• 1/4C Wheat Germ
• 1C Molasses
• 1/2C Honey
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp Yeast (not the rapid-rise junk!)
• 1 Tbsp salt

1. Proof yeast in bottled / filtered water (bring water to 105-110 deg. F, add sugar, add yeast, wait 10 min’s for it to “bloom”).
2. Add whole wheat flour (and Quinoa flour, if you’ve got it) to water & cover with plastic wrap (I put a heating pad on low underneath the bowl if the house is cool). Let this rise until tripled in size.
3. Add honey and molasses and mix in white flour until you have a very moist dough-ball (don’t add too much!). Let this rise until doubled in size.
4. Add the dough ball & then set the mixer to knead the dough. Let it knead until you’ve got the consitency of chewing gum – don’t worry, you could go for about 15 minutes and not overknead. I’ve had the Kitchenaid overheat ’cause I let it go so long, and it was just fine.
5. Add all the seeds, bran, wheat germ, and the salt (don’t forget that, whatever you do, ’cause it controls the yeast growth) to your Kitchenaid’s mixing bowl along with a little bit of white flour, and let it knead at least until all of the seeds have been incorporated. Keep adding little bits of white flour to keep the dough from sticking to the sides, as needed.
6. Dump out onto a floured surface and let rest for a bit; divide into 4 loaves; shape and place into oiled loaf pans; spray tops with olive oil; cover with plastic and let them rise until they’ve almost doubled in size. (You can tell that they’ve risen enough if, when you poke them gently, the dimple doesn’t really want to spring back)
7. Place into a 350 deg. F oven & bake until interior temperature (probe thermometer, here) is 190 deg. F. You can go a bit darker or a bit lighter than 190, but not more than 5 degrees lighter or you’ll have raw dough.
8. Let cool in their pans for about 10 minutes, so they “sweat” and release from the pans.
9. Cool on racks, covered with a tea-towel, overnight & they’ll be easier to slice.

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This one’s something to make about once a year, and to have lots of friends around to help you eat, because it’s all about being special. I picked this one up from a coffee shop I worked for when I was in college. They’ve since gone out of business – probably due to killing their customers off with such rich food as this:

Artery-Coating Lemon Cake:

• 5 Lemons
• 2 Cups Granulated Sugar
• 1¼ Cups Buttermilk
• 4 Eggs
• 3 Cups White Flour
• 1¾ tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• ¼ tsp Salt
• ¾ Cup Unsalted Butter, melted

1. Mix Butter and Sugar until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, while mixing with a hand mixer. Set mixture aside
2. Process Lemon Peels in food processor until the pieces are smaller than grains of rice – they should almost seem like a coarse flour.
3. Mix Lemon Peels with remaining dry ingredients.
4. Mix one third of the dry mixture into the creamed, then mix in one half of the buttermilk, then one third or the dry mixture again, then the remaining buttermilk followed by the remaining dry mixture.
5. Pour into 2 greased 9″x5″ pyrex loaf pans. Bake at 325°F for 50 to 55 minutes. Allow to cool in the pans before removing to a platter, not to a cooling rack.
6. Juice some of the lemons and mix juice with some sugar. Glaze cooled, sliced cakes with this mixture to taste.

Warning: Failure to follow the steps will result in utter failure! This is a suspension cake – which means that it won’t ordinarily come together to make a cake, but will result in something far from anything edible! It is important that each grain of sugar be coated in butter and then egg, and that each granule of lemon is coated with flour. In this manner, the particles are suspended. Over-mixing will destroy this suspension, as will trying to rush the thing together. Just follow the directions!

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We started these off with a basic carrot cake recipe, and it’s morphed to the point where we don’t believe they’re the same thing whatsoever. We call them Fiber Bombs because there’s so much danged fiber in them, and because they really have an effect upon your system, especially if you’re one who’s a stranger to fiber. To us, they’re just snacks, but to my coworkers? Well, let’s just say “colon health,” shall we?

Fiber Bombs:

• 1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped
• 2 cups grated raw carrot (about 2-3 carrots)
• 1 large apple, grated
• Some Raisins (to preference – maybe a cup or two)
• 2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour (or White Whole Wheat)
• 3/4 cup golden flax seeds
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 1/4 cup oat bran
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup coconut (unsweetened. if using sweetened, omit the sugar)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup flax seeds, ground
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Place paper liners in 18 muffin cups.
2. Toast the pecans or walnuts for about 8 minutes or until lightly browned and fragrant. Let cool and then chop coarsely.
3. Finely grate the carrots and apple (an Asian Mandoline works fabulously for this). Set aside.
4. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and ground cinnamon. Stir in the nuts and coconut. Set aside.
5. In a separate bowl whisk together the ground flax seed, water, oil, and vanilla extract. Fold the wet ingredients, along with the grated carrot and apple, into the flour mixture, stirring just until moistened. Evenly divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups and bake for 20 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. After about 10 minutes remove the muffins from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack.

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I thought it appropriate that, for post number 99, I should throw a recipe out there. After all, this site’s about not being able to bake things as often as we’d like, at least in part. So, without further ado, and for Writegrrrl because of the loss of her email:

Cranberry Muffins:

• 1C Xylitol
• 2C Sugar
• 6C White Whole Wheat Flour (King Arthur), Sifted
• 2/3C Flaxseed, Ground
• 3C Water
• 1 Orange’s Zest, finely chopped
• 1 Orange’s Juice
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla
• 2 Packages Cranberries
• 1C Candied Ginger, Chopped
• 5 Cloves
• 1 Inch Cinnamon Stick
• 1 “Arm” of Star Anise
• 8 Allspice Berries
• 2 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 Tbsp Salt

Grind spices along with Flaxseed and add to the water, orange, vanilla, sugars. Mix in everything else until you have a smooth batter – you could go “muffin method” here, or could mix until it’s as smooth as cake batter. Either way, it works. After all that, add in the cranberries, drop into muffin tins and/or cake pans, and bake at 350 until a toothpick comes out cleanly.

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.