Up North and Off the Grid

Baking Bread 

By Viki Mather 

Bread – the Staff of Life. Or is it that anymore? How much nourishment is in a slice of the fluffy white stuff? Or for that matter, the brown coloured bread that sits on the rack right beside the white? Bread is not what it used to be, unless you can afford to pay $4.50 a loaf for the organic whole grain variety.

Food is one of the most important indicators of Quality of Life. You don’t have to be rich to have good food. But you do have to take time and thought to create the best nourishment for your body and your soul. A good place to start is with baking your own bread.

Bread is easy to make. It just takes time. Some of that time is in the learning. The first loaves may be heavy, but if you slice them thinly and make toast – it will still be better than anything you can buy in the store.

Start with excellent ingredients. Use organic grains as much as possible. The cost may seem high at first, but each loaf you make yourself will cost less than the fluffy stuff on the store shelves.

Here’s the recipe I have been using for years.

Put 3 cups of very warm water in a large bowl. Add π cup of honey and π cup of powdered milk (optional).

In a separate bowl, mix 2 cups of organic, stone-ground, hard whole-wheat flour with 2 tablespoons of dry yeast (preferably not ‘quick’ yeast). Wisk this into the sweetened water, and beat for a minute. Let it rest for five minutes, and beat it again.

Add 1 tablespoon of salt and π cup sunflower oil. Beat well. Add one egg, if you like. The milk and egg are optional, both add protein and flavour. Sometimes I’ll add a half-cup of dry rolled oats at this point. You could also add a half-cup of dry, multi-grain cereal, or flax seeds, or sunflower seeds. But hold off on too many additions until you have practiced a few times without them!

Let this gooey mix rest for a couple minutes again, then beat well once more with the wisk.

A wooden spoon works well for the next part. Add flour, a cup at a time and stir, stir, stir! When it gets too stiff to stir, dump the lump out onto a low counter where you can knead it for a while. Only add as much flour as required to keep it from being too sticky. I use a flexible scraper to clean the bowl, and lift the dough from the kneading board now and then.

This is the only hard part about making bread – deciding how much flour to use. Generally, it will take a total of 7 to 8 cups. Add flour slowly! Too much will make dry loaves.

Knead it well. Let it rest for 20 minutes, then knead it well again for about 5 minutes. Let it rest once more while you prepare the pans.

I use small bread pans – about 4 by 8 inches. Use you fingers to rub all the inside with butter. While your hands are still buttery, knead the bread again. Divide it into three loaves, and place in the pans.

Let it rise for about 20 minutes, then put into a 325 F oven for 30 minutes. The whole process takes less than 2 hours!

Buy your ingredients at a bulk-food store, or a health food store. Especially the yeast! This will keep the cost well below that of a ready-made loaf of bread.

Feed your body well – this is the key to true Quality of Life!

Viki Mather is owner of Kukagami Lodge, a northern Ontario wilderness resort at the southern boundary of the Temagami forest Web: www.kukagamilodge.com , email: lodge@kukagami.infosathse.com Viki has lived in the wilderness for 25 years, without electricity or running waterRead these columns monthly to discover wonderful ways to live in harmony with nature, bring edible wilds into your kitchen, thrive without plugging into the grid, and enjoy a healthier life.