a bread+of+life+ +overview

THE BREAD OF LIFE

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

FOREWORD 11

INTRODUCTION 14

SETTING UP Equipment 19

Willing hands and a dusty book Ingredients 25

The essence of essentials GUIDING PRINCIPLES Introduction 41 Principle 1: Step Aside, Start Fresh 43

Seeing truth in a new light Principle 2: Keep it Simple 48 The main thing Principle 3: Spirit of the Law 55 Balancing faith and works Principle 4: Measuring Short 61 Standards of the heart Principle 5: Keeping it Slack 70 Relax – good will prevail Principle 6: Taking the Slow Rise 76 Steady as she goes BASIC SKILLS Introduction 81 Skill 1: Getting Organized 84

Finding more time Skill 2: Mixing and Kneading 90 Truth in tension Skill 3: Primary Fermentation (first rise) 99 A friend for “Life” Skill 4: Deflating 108 Setbacks for growth Skill 5: Dividing, Rounding, and Benching 116 Wisdom from the sidelines Skill 6: Shaping and Panning 124 The purpose driven you Skill 7: Secondary Fermentation (proofing) 133 Temptations nesting in your hair Skill 8: Glazes, Toppings, and Scoring 141

An attitude of gratitude

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Foreword “Bread deals with living things, with giving life, with growth, with the seed, the grain that nurtures. It’s not coincidence that we say bread is the staff of life.” – Lionel Poilâne “And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

~ Bread for the Table ~

ovice bakers only, please. Lionel Poilâne, perhaps the world’s greatest bread baker, never hired a baker who had attended baking school. He believed a

baker’s heart – passion, a desire to learn, and hard work – was the secret recipe of a great baker. This should bring a sigh of relief to all those who want to bake, but whose baking experience consists of frozen cookie dough, boxed cake mixes, and chocolate glazed beater licking. If you’re wondering whether you have what it takes to bake bread from scratch, you do. In fact, you don’t need any baking experience or special cooking skills to become a good baker, even a great baker. And you certainly don’t need any prior experience to enjoy this book. The only thing you need to bake great-tasting bread is a desire to learn and a willingness to practice. I have no formal baking experience. My baking experience is summed up in 30 years of learning and burning. It started in fourth grade, glazing Georgia’s Rolls at my grandmother’s catering business. In high school, I worked at my father’s bakery, where I drank a lot of espresso and learned how to make Danish kringle. During college, I waited tables and nabbed baking tips from four-star pastry chefs after my shift. When I returned to college at age 30 to pursue a degree in journalism, I filled my electives with classes in food science, food history, and nutrition. And when I moved to Idaho, I tried a stint at running a small bakery that made healthful snack foods for athletes. But that’s all frosting. At the core, I attribute my ability to bake bread to practice and passion, not to any special skill or inherited gene. I learned by

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12 • THE BREAD OF LIFE

rolling up my sleeves, making a mess, and masterminding experiments that looked more like crusty reptiles from sci-fi movies than loaves of bread. I only wish someone would have shown me the shortcut up the learning curve of baking. I missed the turn. I don’t want you to miss the turn. By reading The Bread of Life, you will take a journey and discover the road to baking bread is more fun and less complicated than you imagined, and the wayside bread you bake will be the best you’ve ever tasted. Plus, I promise to show you the backcountry shortcuts.

~ Bread for Eternity ~

esus chose the ordinary. It’s interesting to note Jesus Christ chose ordinary men and women in-stead of well known theologians and scholars to be his disciples and

messengers. Today, like then, Christ uses ordinary people like you and me to do the extraordinary. This should be an encouragement to professional backsliders, like myself, and anyone else trying to live a Christian lifestyle in a cruel, mixed-up world. There is no secret knowledge, special skill, social status, or degree of purity required to start or maintain a relationship with Christ. You simply need a faithful heart, a desire to learn, and a willingness to change. If you trust and act, there is hope, and you will discover your purpose in life. I have no formal theological training or degree in divinity. My relationship with Christ started in eighth grade, but it wasn’t until I was 30 that I made the relationship a priority. Sure, I went to church. I even read the Bible, went on retreats, and attended Bible studies. But the whole time, I kept Christ at arm’s length. Far enough away that he wouldn’t interfere with my plans, but close enough to reach out and grab when I needed help. The result was lost friendships, failed businesses, and a broken marriage. It took a near-death dirtbike crash on my 40th birthday to wake me up. While lying on a recovery bed in the boonies of Alaska with busted ribs, bruised kidneys, and a torn diaphragm, I recommitted and renewed my rela-tionship with Christ. I faced my shortcomings and acknowledged my pride. I prayed for a changed heart and a chance to live God’s way. God is gracious, because this wasn’t my first big wake-up call from God. The first one happened 10 years earlier, and it was just as scary. I’ll share

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FOREWORD • 13

it with you later. Though it goes to show, God doesn’t give up on those he loves, no matter what you’ve done. We’re all works in progress. Since that terrifying afternoon in Alaska, life continues to bring its ups and downs. But now, my perspective is different. Now, I’m trusting God and taking action. Now, I understand my purpose. Now, I have passion. If brokenness, perseverance, and lots of burned bread qualify me to write this book, instead of a divinity degree and a baking certificate, then I stand humbly before you, just an ordinary Joe, in a stained bakery apron willing to share the dough of my soul, so we may both grow together as we journey through these pages.

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Introduction “All sorrows are less with bread.” – Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote) “I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me, declares the LORD.” Amos 4:6


ou started young and your job was simple. To work for Grandma, your shoulders had to be at least as high as the counter top. This was around age 10. Your first job was garnish-

ing plates with parsley and smothering her “Georgia’s Rolls” with icing. To a 10-year-old, putting weeds on a plate was boring. But painting icing on warm buttery rolls was magic, and there was always a little icing left in the bowl to lick. Whatever the job, Grandma made sure you knew its importance and did it right. A stout Irish German with thick arms, a bold face, and a twinkle in her eye, Georgia Iselin catered with the same team of five women for 25 years. With a cross on one wall and a rosary hanging on the other, these blue-haired beauties efficiently and methodically served scientists, scholars, theologians, and politicians from around the world at the Frank Lloyd Wright Wingspread Conference Center in Wind Point, Wisconsin. I worked at Grandma’s catering business throughout my childhood. Dur-ing that time, she taught me lessons about baking and cooking. She taught me how to roast turkey, bake pecan pie, and how to buy vegetables. She also taught me simple truths about baking and cooking, the greatest of which still rings clear: “Food doesn’t have to be dressed up to taste great . . . it’s humble food that pleases the heart most.” I’ve never forgotten those words, and this truth can be applied to baking bread. In its simplest form, bread consists of flour, water, salt, and yeast. These four humble ingredients combine to create a staple food that has fed people in every culture around the world for more than 6,000 years. The aroma of bread alone can cause the bravest will to sigh. Bread has toppled empires, won wars, and created economies. In each loaf, we find refuge; in each slice, solace; in each bite, comfort.

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Dispelling misconceptions If bread is so popular and requires only four ingredients, a mixing bowl, a spoon, a cookie sheet, and an oven, why do so many people believe baking bread is so difficult? I believe it’s because people have misconceptions about baking bread, or have had bad experiences in their attempts to make bread. If you talk with people who have never baked bread, they will tell you making bread is time consuming, difficult, and requires a special skill. If you talk with people who’ve baked bread once or twice, they will tell you the reason they gave up on baking bread was their attempts resulted in bread that turned out weird tasting, burnt, or looked and felt like a doorstop. Can you relate? If you can, The Bread of Life is the bread book for you because it dispels misconceptions and difficulties facing frustrated and disgruntled bakers. It does this in a fun, lighthearted manner that is insightful and edu-cational. What’s ahead The book starts off with sections on equipment and ingredients. This will help you set up your kitchen and stock your pantry. You’ll be glad to know, making bread requires only a few pieces of equipment and a handful of in-expensive ingredients. Bread is good value for the bite. The next section covers general baking principles. These are the basic guidelines that govern how you should approach breadmaking. For exam-ple, you’ll learn that trusting your senses is more important than following a recipe. You’ll learn that precisely measuring ingredients might be precisely why your bread falls short of fame. And you’ll discover that keeping the baking process simple is the surest way to achieve consistency. Next, I cover baking techniques. These are the basic skills you’ll use over and over to make great-tasting bread with little time and effort. You’ll dis-cover no special eye-hand coordination or baking gene is required to knead dough. You’ll learn how to use the process of cold fermentation to make bread of superior flavor and texture, just like bread from artisan bakeries. You’ll also learn timesaving tips and insights about shaping, glazing, baking, cooling, storing, and eating bread. I’ll even tell you why you should consid-er taking karate lessons if you’re going to bake bread.


To apply what you’ve learned, and to start eating and sharing delicious homemade bread, I’ve included a recipe section with a handful of classic, easy to prepare recipes. Mastering the formulas for these seven recipes will give you the confidence to make any bread. I believe I covered all your fa-vorite breads such as French, honey wheat, and milk. There are also recipes for cornbread, pita bread, and my grandmother’s famous “Georgia’s Rolls.” Plus, there’s a recipe for pizza that rivals any za you’ve eaten. I end the book with a section called “Bread Basket.” It covers a hodge-podge of topics including bread history, bread nutrition, high altitude baking, and common baking errors. For fun, I threw in a chapter on bread terrorism, for those carbo-phobes who believe bread is fattening. A hunch tells me, half of you will turn to this chapter first. The truth about homemade bread The truth about making homemade bread is that it takes less “hands on” time and effort than most homemade cakes and cookies. After reading this book and baking a few loaves, you’ll discover how fun and easy it is to bake memorable homemade bread. Best of all, you’ll learn how to make deli-cious bread that satisfies the hearts and tummies of friends, family, and those in need. You may even get the chance to pass along a tradition to someone whose shoulders are just above the counter.

~ Bread for Eternity ~

believe my grandmother’s advice about humble food also plays true in life. We tend to dress up our lives with things that make us look good on the outside. However, what should concern us is how we look on

the inside, because that’s where God looks. He’s interested in our heart condition, because he wants us to maintain a healthy relationship with him. Heart disease When it comes to a relationship with God, many of us suffer from a case of coronary heart disease (hard heart), arrhythmia (erratic heart), or pericardial disease (sore heart). Instead of seeking God and truth, we find it safer and easier to say, “Reli-gion is for the weak,” “I don’t need church, I’m a good person,” “The church just wants my money,” or “who needs all that hypocrisy, anyway?” Drill a little deeper and you’ll discover the reason for many hard and achy Christian hearts, or disbelief in Jesus, or distance from God, is often the

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INTRODUCTION • 17

result of misconceptions or misunderstandings about Jesus, God, and Christianity. Unfortunately, some people are frightened of Christianity because they’ve had a bad experience with a church, denomination, or pastor. If this has happened to you, I’m sorry, but please don’t use your experience as an ex-cuse to dodge a relationship with God. Your relationship with God has eternal significance, and your lifestyle should be modeled after Christ and the Bible, not on a particular denomination, church, or person. Take a fresh look at Christianity The irony is, some of us do attend church, believe in God, and have a rela-tionship with Jesus, but we still shy away from living a Christian lifestyle. We’re afraid if we begin to trust God and live as the Bible says, we’ll have to quit our job, lose our freedom, leave our family, and become a missionary in some remote village in an African desert. We feel leading a Christian lifestyle will result in a life riddled with shame, guilt, rules, and worst of all, we’ll be forced to give away our money, take up bingo, and join the choir. Wrong. All wrong. If you can relate to any of this, I want to encourage you to take a fresh look at your life and your relationship with God. As you read The Bread of Life, you’ll discover leading a Christian lifestyle is less complicated and less frus-trating than you think. A Bible, a handful of guiding principles, and a little initiative is all you need to get started. The rest will naturally unfold as you practice, learn, and grow through your experiences and relationship with God. A new world unfolds Granted, God never said being a Christian was going to be easy, or that radical change in our lives wouldn’t take place. He does say, he will give us strength and wisdom to handle life’s challenges and sufferings. God also says he will help us understand and fulfill our purpose in life, and offer us grace and peace, so we can enjoy life, regardless of our circumstances. God wants us to win. The Bread of Life is a journey that will give you new perspective on Christian living. Once you understand Jesus, and his purpose for your life, things will begin to fall into place. You’ll learn being a Christian can be fun, exciting, and freeing. You’ll learn to nourish the inside of your life, not the outside. Life will begin to have meaning, and a new world will unfold as you walk in faith.


The result is a satisfying Christian lifestyle you can humbly share with family, friends, and those in need. It’s also the best way to stay spiritually healthy and avoid heart disease.

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Setting Up

Equipment Willing hands and a dusty book “Breadbaking is one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world's sweetest smells . . . there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this home-ly ceremony of making bread.” – M. F. K. Fisher “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4


ou need very little. Are you one of those people who bake once or twice year, yet have a kitchen that rivals Martha Stewart’s? If you are, let me suggest

you leave your bread mixer, quarry tiles, willow bread baskets, specialty bread pans, and other “conveniences” in the pantry – at least for now. They’re not necessary for baking bread, and most of the time they just get in the way. On the other hand, if your kitchen is stocked like that of an apartment-dwelling college student, you’re in good shape. As I said, all you need to bake bread is a mixing bowl, a cookie sheet, a spoon, and an oven. Oh, yeah, and a set of measuring cups and spoons. Start simple. Once you master basic breadmaking, you can dust off those expensive bread pans, fire up your five-speed turbo mixer, and buy all sorts of fancy gadgets and equipment to build your baking arsenal. And Martha will love you. Bread by Braille The most useful equipment you’ll need to bake bread is a willing pair of hands and a set of tuned senses. This is the equipment of artisan bakers. This is how professional bakers learn how to make bread at culinary school. And this is how hobby bakers like you will learn the art and craft of baking, and become great bakers. When you use your hands and senses to bake, you establish a feedback channel of experience: Your eyes watch, your hands feel, your nose smells,

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Setting Up

Ingredients The essence of essentials “Let there be work, bread, water, and salt for all.” – Nelson Mandela “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” Matthew 13:33


nly four. You need only four ingredients to make great-tasting bread: flour, water, salt, and yeast. Since the number of ingredients is so few,

the function of each is significant. Understanding some details of about each ingredient will help you make better bread because you’ll be substituting mystery and confusion with science and clarity – without any loss of romance, of course. I’ll admit, this chapter is long and moves slowly. But this information be-comes invaluable as you begin to troubleshoot problems and experiment. It’s like ski lessons for a first-time skier: you can forgo them and take your chances, or you can learn a few basics, and then swoosh up the learning curve. Grind it out, you’ll thank me later. Flour Flour is the soul of bread. Its function is to give structure to bread and to create flavor. The type of flour you use will determine the nature of your bread. Soft flour makes soft bread; hearty flour makes hearty bread. Flour comes from grinding wheat grains. A wheat grain, more commonly called a kernel, is actually a fruit. Each grain shell is made up of two fruit-leaves with their edges rolled over and grown together. A single milled grain produces 20,000 particles of flour. When water is added to flour and you knead the mixture, the protein in the flour develops strong, elastic, sheet-like structures called gluten. Think of gluten as the bubblegum of bread. It’s the gummy structure that traps the air and gases created by yeast fermentation and steam.

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Guiding Principle #1

Step Aside, Start Fresh Seeing truth in a new light “Thinkst thou such force in bread?” – John Milton “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.” Proverbs 30:7-9


ou can bake bread. In fact, I’ll bet you can make delicious bread on your first try. You have the equipment; you have the ingredients. It’s now time to erase

any preconceived notions or expectations you have about making bread. Thoughts like “All yeast must be proofed before using it,” “Kneading takes strength,” “I have to measure exactly,” “Making bread is complicated,” or “I can cook, but I can’t bake” are hogwash, and they’ve got to go. Easier said than done, right? Truth is, we can’t simply erase stereotypes, notions, and bad experiences from our minds like chalk from a blackboard. We wish we could. I suspect some of the chalk on your baking blackboard is old and etched deep, which is why you don’t bake bread very often, or at all. Since you can’t simply erase or wish these notions away, allow me make another suggestion: Step aside and start fresh. This is the first principle you need to apply when learning to bake bread because it realigns your thinking. This is important because it gets your mind out from behind any judgments or preconceived notions, so that you have a clear, fresh perspective on the baking process. Freedom of a new perspective Stepping aside doesn’t require you to deny or cover up your current per-spective. You might very well think kneading takes strength. You might very well feel you can’t bake – and I believe you. I don’t expect you to believe anything different – for now. Those thoughts and feelings are real, and they can’t be tossed away like pieces of trash. What you can do, and what I want you to do, is take a step out from behind the shadows of these perspectives and allow yourself the freedom to try a new perspective.

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Guiding Principle #3

Spirit of the Law Balancing faith and works “The dough, not the written formula, must dictate its needs.” – Peter Reinhart “We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right.” 2 Thessalonians 3:11-13


is wood-fired ovens had no temperature gauges. This was not an oversight. Lionel Poilâne did this purposely so his apprentices would learn how to make bread using only their senses.

Peter Reinhart, a master baker himself, firmly believes the best way to learn how to become a good baker is to avoid rigid rules and to use your senses and good judgment. “My goal is not to make you into a dogmatically doc-trinal baker, what I call the ‘letter-of-the-law baker.’ Instead, I want to help you become a ‘spirit-of-the-law baker.’ That is, one who has a sense of what the options are and thus is free to choose the options that will bring about the desired outcomes.” The concept behind Reinhart’s approach to baking is our third breadmaking principle: Spirit of the Law baking. Studying techniques, measuring accurately, and following recipe instructions is useful and helpful. But when rules become cages, you’re doomed. The “sense” of good baking Experienced breadmakers know recipes are more like hand-drawn roadmaps pointing in a general direction than detailed Yahoo Maps leading you turn-by-turn. Breadmakers know following baking formulas precisely does not guarantee good bread, because there are too many variables that can affect the outcome. The type of flour, method of measurement, length of fermentation, and altitude are just a few variables that affect the size, shape, flavor, and texture of bread.

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Basic Skill #1

Getting Organized Finding more time “The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.” – Simone Weil “Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your bread and water.” Exodus 23:25


little prep will save a lot of fret. Sharing a quiet afternoon of baking with your daughter can quickly turn into a frustrating fiasco, if halfway through a cornbread recipe

you discover there’s no buttermilk in the fridge. Frustrated and running behind schedule, you bolt to the store, sit in traffic, wait in the slowest checkout line, and then drive back home through more traffic. After the has-sle, your daughter, with pigtails and a flowered apron, says she’s no longer interested in baking cornbread and would rather bake leftover frozen cook-ie dough. Almost as bad as forgetting an ingredient, is assuming a recipe says one thing, but halfway through making it, you discover it says something else; a recipe calls for egg yolks, but you add whole eggs. Or, you mix the wet and dry ingredients together, when you were supposed to add the dry ingredi-ents to the wet ingredients. Once you realize mistakes like these, 99 times out of 100, it’s too late to make changes. To prevent little disasters like this from happening when you bake bread, let me suggest three precautions: Read, take inventory, and make a plan. Read it twice Before you start baking, before you even open the pantry, read the recipe – twice. This is one of the easiest tasks you can do to ensure your bread, or any recipe, turns out as hoped. If you don’t like to read, I understand. I’m a reader now, but I didn’t used to be. In grade school, I was the type of kid who skimmed pages and looked at pictures. Occasionally, I’d read the last chapter. Had I not copied Sarah Halme’s book reports in fourth grade, I don’t think I would have passed English.

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Basic Skill #2

Mixing and Kneading Truth in tension “There is not a thing which is more positive than bread.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky “Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.” Deuteronomy 28:5


was 13 in the summer of 1974. My summer project that year was painting the basement. My dad gave me 10 cans of rubber-based paint to do the job. It was thick and goopy,

and stirring it by hand was a messy, futile task. Thinking there had to be an easier way to stir the paint, I turned to my mom’s Hamilton Beach bread mixer. “What an ingenious idea!” I thought. The mixer proved worthy as its powerful beaters stirred the paint of all 10 cans with ease. However, I made a costly mistake. I mixed at too high a speed. Globs of paint splashed onto the floor, the refrigerator, and worst of all, into the mixer’s motor. By the time my mother arrived home from work, I was able to clean up most of the paint with turpentine. But when she saw the faded varnish on her hardwood floors and the damage to her mixer, she was furious. She grounded me for two weeks. My dad grounded me for another two, and punctuated the penalty by giving me the chore of cleaning up dog doo-doo for a month. The grounding gave me plenty of time to finish the basement. My mom, an avid baker, remained bummed about the mixer. It never again ran the same. For about a year, it made a deep, stumbling humm . . . ghrrr sound; then it died. I can’t remember what my mom did with the mixer, but I do remem-ber the basement looked great. Mixing and kneading – an overview The purpose of mixing and kneading is to distribute ingredients, develop gluten, and ignite the fermentation process.

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Basic Skill #3

Primary Fermentation (first rise) A friend for “Life” ". . . What many bakers don't realize is that good wheat can make bad bread. The magic of bread baking is in the manipulation and the fermentation. What has been lost . . . is this method." – Lionel Poilâne “I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.” John 6:47-50


ood fermentation makes great bread. Eighty percent of bread’s flavor is created during primary fermen-tation, the other 20 percent during baking. The function of primary

fermentation (first rise), is to ferment dough so it will rise, and to flavor dough by freeing trapped sugar in the flour’s starch molecules. The process begins when you mix and knead a combination of flour, water, and yeast. Time and temperature are the control knobs of fermentation. They deter-mine depth of flavor and complexity of texture. Short, warm fermentation will make delicious bread with good flavor and texture. Long, cool fer-mentation will make bread of exceptional flavor and texture. Learning to fine-tune the fermentation process allows you to alter the flavor and texture of any bread you make. This isn’t so important when you start baking, but it’s very important once you start experimenting. Yeast fermentation Kneading dough is the dinner bell for yeast. As soon as water begins to hydrate the flour, yeast sprint to flour’s buffet table of sugary starch mole-cules. While yeast eat, their enzymes break up the starch into small, flavorful sugar compounds. If any sugar has been added to the flour, such as table sugar or malt syrup, the yeast will feed on that as well.

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Basic Skill #7

Secondary Fermentation (proofing) Temptations nesting in your hair “To eat bread without hope is to slowly starve to death.” – Pearl S. Buck “When he [Jesus] was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him and he disappeared from their sight.” Luke 24:30-31


ost recipes call for at least two fermentation cycles. The first cycle, primary fermentation, takes place after the kneading stage, the second cycle, secondary fermentation, after the dough has

been shaped and panned. Some bakers refer to secondary fermentation, and any subsequent fermentation cycles, as proofing. Proofing is an old term bakers used to describe whether the yeast in dough was active. If the dough rose during a fermentation cycle, it was “proof” the yeast was alive and feeding. The purpose of any proofing stage is to build gluten strength in the dough and develop complex flavors. The last proofing stage, the one right before baking, is of particular importance because it plays a key role in determining the height of the loaf. Here’s what you do Whether you’re baking freeform baguettes or pan loaves, make sure you cover the dough with plastic wrap after shaping it. Now, all you have to do is wait. The final proofing stage will take between 20 and 60 minutes de-pending on room temperature, size of dough, and type of dough. Your goal is to let the dough rise to 80 percent of the desired finished height. The additional 20 percent takes place during baking. Your eyes are the only equipment you’ll need to measure this 80 percent. If you’re off 10 percent either way, your bread will still turn out fine. Just be

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Basic Skill #12

Serving, Eating, and Sharing The blessing of giving “My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.” – Leo Tolstoy “And he [Jesus] took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” Luke 22:19


resh-baked bread is alluring. Anyone within wafting distance of a fresh-baked loaf will be clamoring for a slice before you can set it on a cooling rack. To keep order, and

to protect the integrity of the bread, here are some tips to remember about serving and eating oven-fresh bread. Cool it Remember to let bread cool for at least 45 minutes before cutting and serv-ing it. I mention this again because it’s important your bread finish cooking once you remove it from the oven. Otherwise, if you cut bread right out of the oven, it will taste doughy, and the uneaten portion will not “set” cor-rectly, leaving you with a chewy, flat-tasting loaf. Ah, what’s the use; you’ll cut it before it completely cools, anyway. (Shhhh . . . I sometimes do, too.) Keep quality condiments on hand The taste of plain, fresh bread is so delicious, few people will want to put anything on it. But if you like butter, jam, jelly, or honey, use quality types. You’ve made quality bread, why dishonor it with jam made with high-fructose corn syrup or plastic-tasting margarine. Use fresh fruit preserves and wholesome butter. Let me assure you, a slather of butter now and then, especially if you’re exercising, won’t send you and your heart to the hospital in need of an angioplasty. I make it a habit to treat myself to a gourmet condiment once a month. This month it’s fresh boysenberry preserves from Oregon; last month it

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Recipes

Harriett’s Milk Bread A cemetery of forgiveness “Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesman it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.” – GK Chesterton “Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of his threshing cart over it, his horses do not grind it.” Isaiah 28:28

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orry, Charlie. But thanks for the bread. One of my first jobs was mowing the lawn of a Presbyterian cemetery. Every other Saturday, either my mom or dad would drive me out to the

rural town of Wales, Wisconsin. That’s where an old man named Charlie maintained the cemetery. He was as round as he was tall, and he always invited me over to his crumbling farmhouse for lunch after I had finished mowing. The farmhouse was small, cold, and smelled like damp wood. Charlie lived there with his wife, Harriett. She was as big and round as Charlie, and her hair was white as cotton. They were Christians. For two summers, I ate lunch with them every time I mowed the cemetery. Lunch was always one of two meals: eggs and bacon, or beef barley soup. Regardless which dish Harriett served, there was always a freshly made loaf of milk bread perched on the counter, sleeping in a checkerboard kitchen towel. She cut the bread into thick slices and toasted them dark. Charlie lathered his two slices – always two – with gobs of fresh-churned brick butter; Har-riett spread honey on her one slice – always one. Forgiveness; it’s never too late to ask The first summer I worked for Charlie and Harriet, I was creeped out. I mean, two old curmudgeons living in the boonies next to a graveyard in a

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Bread Basket

10 Common Baking Mistakes Answers to crusty problems “Better bread with water than cake with trouble.” – Russian Proverb “Bread gained by fraud tastes sweet to a man, but he ends up with a mouth full of gravel.” Proverbs 20:17

~ ~ ~ 1. Dough won’t rise. Old yeast, improper water temperature, or flour

without enough gluten strength. Check the expiration date on the yeast package. Optimal water temperature to activate yeast should be between 115°-125°. Lower the percentage of flour if using flour with low gluten strength, like rye.

2. Loaf is crumbly and dry. Too much flour or too much rise time at

too high a temperature. Adjust water-to-flour ratio and allow dough to rise at a lower temperature.

3. Loaf is dense and flat. Too much liquid relative to the amount of

flour, or the dough was kneaded improperly. Adjust water-to-flour ratio. Knead the dough longer.

4. Yeasty smell in dough or bread. Too much yeast, over-fermented

dough, or underbaked. Use less yeast. Reduce the number of rises. Shorten the length of rises, or raise dough in a cool place, even the refrigerator.

5. Loaf collapses in the oven. Dough was over-risen during the pre-bake

rise. Shorten the amount of time dough rises before baking. 6. Sides and crust are pale and soft, but top crust is dark. Oven tem-

perature is too hot. Reduce oven temperature and place water in the oven to slow top browning.

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Bread Basket

Bread – its name is dirt A toast to bread’s holy and drunken past “It isn’t bread that feeds you; it is life and the spirit that feed you through bread.” – Angelus Silesius, Der Cherubinischer Wandersmann “He spread out a cloud as a covering, and a fire to give light at night. They asked, and he brought them quail and satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He opened the rock, and water gushed out; like a river it flowed in the desert. For he remembered his holy promise given to his servant Abraham.” Psalm 105:39-42


ebster bread. The Webster dictionary defines bread as, “A staple food made from flour or meal mixed with other dry and liquid ingredients,

usually combined with a leavening agent, like yeast, and kneaded, shaped into loaves, and baked.” This is a simple enough definition, but as you begin to slice into the name, bread, it becomes apparent that variations of the name, its derivatives, and its history are as numerous and diverse as the types of bread itself. A pint of bread, please The term bread is relatively new. Its use came about in the 11th century when bread was used in the general sense to mean “something that had been brewed.” Since brewer’s yeast was used to raise bread, it was not uncommon to hear both beer, and a loaf of bread referred to as “bread.” “Aye, Mate, pour me a pint of bread!” was a common expression. Some early European and Old English spellings of bread include bryad, bryead, breed, brad, breid, brade, braud, brôt, brođ, bredde, and bred. The word loaf appeared several centuries earlier than bread. Its origins are found in the Old English word hlāf, which not only gave us loaf, but lord, as in landlord, who, at that time owned most of the mills and controlled the distribution of bread. Further examination of the word hlāf unveils an interesting discovery. Ety-mologists tell us the root of hlāf (hlf) is the same as glb, which is the root of gleba, which is the root of the modern word globe. Gleba means “a clod

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a bread+of+life+ +overview

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