The Sprouted Wheat Loaves - Organic/Vegan

Back in the kitchen again after a few days off and threw myself into perfecting organic/vegan bread baking.  When you're not used to baking this kind of bread sometimes its hard to master.  Taking a regular bread recipe and changing it, to use not so much organic ingredients but vegan ingredients, can be a challenge in itself if you are not used to baking this way.  A lot of recipes I have call for milk in them, this one thankfully did not.  Using a vegan milk such as soy, coconut or almond can change the way the bread bakes.  It may not be a high loaf, sometimes it caves in the middle, or it may become to dense and doughy, like I said, a challenge.  

I found this old recipe I had tucked away for a few years, I switched out all the regular ingredients and used organic and/or vegan.  The secret to it's height, I added a dough conditioner/improver to the mix that I found on the King Arthur Baking website that's made from soy.  It worked wonderfully, my loaves had a great rise to them and were very light. No dense heavy bread this time, which is the way we like them around here, and great for sandwich making and toasting. 

Recipe Below.

Perfect high rise

Two lovely loaves

Great shape for sammies!

Nice and brown, the way bread should be.

Perfect inside and out.

Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients

2 cups warm water (110 degrees F)

1 tablespoon active dry yeast (I used Red Star)

1/3 cup organic honey

2 Cups Organic Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour (I used One Degree)

1 teaspoon of table salt

1/3 cup canola oil

5 Cups Organic all-purpose flour (I used Bob's Red Mill Organic Unbleached White Flour)

7 teaspoons whole grain bread improver (I used KAB)

Instructions

In the bowl of a mixer, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the honey and stir until dissolved. Whisk the whole wheat flour together with the salt.  Add to the mixer bowl along with oil.  Attach your dough hook and mix on medium speed until all is combined.  Whisk together the all-purpose flour and the improver.  With mixer on medium speed, gradually add the white flour mix until all is combined, scrape bowl as you go along. Mix until a rough dough ball forms. 

Turn the dough out on to a lightly flour surface and knead for 10 minutes.  When the dough is smooth and somewhat elastic, form into a smooth ball with seams tucked under, place in a well oiled bowl, turning to coat it on all sides.  Place the ball smooth side up seam side down and cover with a damp towel.  Let it rise in a warm place until double in size, about 45-60 minutes.

I put mine in my oven with just the oven light on- DO NOT TURN YOUR OVEN ON!

Punch the dough down, shape it into 2 even loaves (I weighed mine) and place in two well greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans, lightly cover with plastic wrap. Allow them to rise until the dough is 1 to 1 1/2 inches above the rim of the pans.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.  Remember all ovens are different temperature wise.  The loaves should have an internal temperature of  190 degrees when fully baked.  Remove pans from oven.  Let the loaves rest in the pan for 5 minutes, pop them out of the pan on to a baking rack and turn top side up.  Cool completely.  Makes 2 loaves.

Be My Valentine!

I made some sweet treats for Valentine's Day, cookies and cake pops.  These were for my grand kids,

  the dinosaurs were for my grandson.

 LOVE them all to the moon and back!

Lots of hearts, lots of love.

With a T-Rex and Stegosaurus for some ROARS!

Packaged up for my lovies!

The cake pops were easy to make and decorate.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

💝💞💟💖💘💗💕

Delicious Sourdough Biscuits

 I've gotten myself into a lot of bread baking lately and I really enjoy it.  It's relaxing to me, just me in the kitchen all by myself  and I'm lovin' it!  It all kind of started with figuring out organic vegan bread recipes for my son and then I moved on to regular bread baking, once I mastered the vegan side of bread baking. My sister even jumped on the wagon of homemade bread baking because she needed gluten free breads. I am now making my own homemade split top hot dog buns, because the hubby has a love for them.  

Today I made a comfort meal for dinner of meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy and corn for dinner and thought hmmmm..... biscuits would be good with our meal, so into the kitchen I went and got to work.  I made my biscuits from a sourdough starter discard, I always have a crock of that in the fridge. You have to feed the sourdough starter and that requires you to discard some of the dough every time you have to feed it.  I don't throw it out, it's still useful, so I save it in a small crock and make breads, pancakes, waffles, biscuits and rolls with it.  There are a lot of recipes out there for it's use, these are a few of the things that I use it for.  I have to say these biscuits turned out great!  They have a crispy buttery outside texture and are soft and fluffy inside. Just a few ingredients and one bowl to make them, no mixer involved.  I made mine rather large, next time I think I'll make them smaller.  I slathered butter all over the top when we ate them for dinner, and I think the leftovers are going to be great for breakfast with some butter and jam spread on them. I can't wait until morning to have those!

Recipe Below.

Mixin' them up.  That's my crock of sourdough in the back.

Flatten out the dough with your hands, the best tool in your kitchen and cut the biscuits out.

I cut mine with a glass, my biscuit cutter was packed away with my cookie cutters.

Light and fluffy pillows of dough and if you look closely you can see the butter in the dough.

Oh my, oh my they're so good!  They would even be great made into mini strawberry (or any other fruit) shortcakes and some homemade whipped cream or a breakfast sandwich too, the possibilities are endless. 

Sourdough Biscuits

Ingredients

1 cup of flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick of cold butter, cut into pieces

1 cup sourdough starter discard

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Work the butter in with a pastry blender until small crumbly balls of dough start to form.

Add the sourdough discard and mix it gently until it forms a messy dough ball.  Turn it out onto a floured surface and pat it gently into a 6 inch by 1 inch thick  round.  With a biscuit cutter, cut out 4 biscuits as close together as you can.  With the remaining dough, pat out and cut 2 more biscuits.

Place the biscuits on the baking sheet 2 inches apart.  Bake the biscuits for 20-22 minutes or until golden brown.

 

Remove from oven and serve warm, or cool on a cooling rack then store in a plastic bag at room temperature, you can also freeze them.