Basic Bread & Cinnamon Rolls

Our middle daughter, age 10 (almost 11), had a lesson this weekend in bread baking. I decided to blog it for the recipe section of my blog.

Flax Seed

Wheat Spelt
Kamut Triticale

This recipe is used with a Bosch Mixer and a NutriMill grain mill. We decided to make it a multi-grain bread. Our grain choices were Prairie Gold Wheat, Flax Seed, Spelt, Kamut, and Triticale. Our family recipe also uses white flour since we prefer a white bread for texture and it helps with the rise due to our mountain elevation.

First step is preparing the grains.

1 cup flax seed is prepared by putting it into a blender and grinding it into a powder type texture.

Wheat, Spelt, Kamut and Tritacale

I added 4 cups of Wheat, 1 cup Spelt, 1 cup Kamut, and 1 cup Tritacale into the grain mill. This will grind more flour than what is needed for the recipe but we like to have a little extra to set aside for pancakes. Freshly ground grains should be refrigerated or frozen to retain as much nutritional value as possible.

Using our Bosch Mixer, we added the following (please add in this order)

5 cups warm/hot water

2 tsp. Lemon juice

1/2 cup Olive Oil

1/2 cup Honey (we use raw honey)

2 T Salt (we use Sea Salt)

7 cups of the freshly ground flour

Turn on Bosch Mixer to moisten all the ingredients (about 30 seconds)

Then add the following:

6 cups White Flour

1 cup of the blended Flax Seed

3 1/2 Tbls. of Yeast

With the Bosch Mixer on, carefully watch to see that the dough is cleanly pulled away from the bowl. If it is sticking to the sides, slowly add in remaining freshly ground flour until it pulls away. Picture shows how the side of the bowl is fairly clean. Do it with little bits at time.

Turn on the Bosch Mixer for 5 minutes with the lid on.

Let rest for 5 minutes.

Turn on the Bosch Mixer for 20 minutes with the lid off. (Safety note: Please be careful with it functioning with the lid off.) We found that with the lid on during the 20 minute kneading cycle that the moisture built up caused the dough to be sticky.

We then place the dough into a plastic bowl that has been coated with olive oil. Turn dough so that both sides of the dough has oil on it and then cover with a kitchen towel that has been wet in HOT water.

Once this has risen for approximately 60 minutes and has doubled in size, it is ready to be taken out onto a greased counter top and divided into loaves. Divide this into 4 equal sections and shape into loaves and place into greased loaf pans or 1 section can be used to make cinnmon rolls for the next morning.

**We did this differently and found out that it didn’t quite work as well as we had thought. We divided this into 5 sections and put 4 into loaf pans and made 1 into cinnamon rolls. Our bread didn’t end baking as high as we would have liked….live and learn with recipes. **

I taught my daughter that as we prepare this bread that it is important to clean up as we go. The kitchen was completely cleaned, swept, dishes washed and put away while the bread was rising in the oiled bowl and we even had time to do other things in between.

While the loaves are rising in the bread pans, we prepared our cinnamon rolls. With a rolling pin, we rolled out the dough into a thin rectangular shape. We then spread our “spreadable butter” (I will post this recipe in another post), sprinkled with cinnamon and then sugar and rolled into a roll. We then cut into 1/2″ -1″ sections and placed in a greased baking dish. Cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. They will rise over night and be ready to bake. Tomorrow morning put in the oven on 350 degrees (do NOT preheat or your cold baking dish could break in a hot oven) and when they are lightly browned and cooked through (about 30 minutes) remove from oven and top with icing. To make the icing, we take a tablespoon of milk and slowly add powdered sugar until it is smooth and creamy to pour over the top of our cinnamon rolls. (My girls sometimes make extra icing…LOL!)

Now our loaves have risen and are ready to be baked. Place in oven at 350 degrees. Depending upon your oven and elevation these will bake for approximately 30-45 minutes. My oven which is propane takes about 30 minutes. The loaves will be a golden brown when completed. Immediately remove and cool on racks. As tempting as hot from the oven bread is, if you want to use this for sandwiches, I strongly recommend letting it cool completely before slicing.

This recipe is fairly flexible. Another favorite is make the recipe pretty much the same except we used about 9 cups of just freshly ground wheat and 5 cups of white. This makes a really nice bread that is light and yummy!

{repost from 2009 -- I miss my grain mill. ...maybe a future purchase.}