Nothing makes me feel accomplished quite like making a loaf of bread... or two! For me, it is a great distraction from doing other work that really needs to be done on the weekend.
Plus, I wanted to use the rosemary I recently bought before my un-green thumb and the Arizona "valley-of-the-sun-with-no-rain-and triple-digit-temps" kills it.
The recipe, Braided Herb Bread, comes from my favorite cookbook, The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook from 1989.
Time: be prepared to spend pretty much the bulk of your Sunday (at least 4 hours)
Ingredients: salt, rosemary leaves, yeast, flour, water, butter, egg
1. Put salt (1 tbsp), rosemary (1 tbsp), yeast (2 packets), and flour (2 1/2 cups) into a kitchenaid bowl.
2. Place water (2 1/2 cups) and butter (1 tbsp) in a saucepan and heat until it reaches around 120 degrees.
3. Mix water and butter into the bowl containing salt, rosemary, yeast and flour at medium speed for a couple minutes.
4. Continue mixing and slowly add 4 1/2 cups of flour. Dough should form into a ball.
5. Place into a greased bowl, cover and let rise for an hour. During this hour, you should probably accomplish something else with your day. Maybe put the laundry away before the cat gets fuzz all over it.
6. After the dough rises, knead it for 10 minutes. Add "workout" to your list of accomplishments for the day.
7. Cut the dough into 6 pieces. You will need three for each loaf of bread.
8. Roll out into ropes and braid together, place on cookie sheet.
9. Cover and let rise for another 30 minutes. Watch the Olympics.
10. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and brush loaves with egg.
11. Bake for 30 minutes.
12. Take pride!
3 comments:
Great post! The writing is good and the directions are clear.
You make it look so easy!! Where did you get that cookbook...you were 3 when it was published!
I got the cookbook from a thrift store in NC. It's my fave!
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