Samma Spot: Is making your own bread considered eating healthier??

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Is making your own bread considered eating healthier??

I'm going with YES!! Well come on....it is free of many preservatives and fake stuff so it's better in that regard!! Work with me people work with me!!!

I'm not resolving to lose weight, give up sweets, breads, etc....you know all the normal New Years stuff because I'm just resolving to eat better. That's less processed and preserved foods and more of I made it and I know what's in it foods. Yeah so maybe the "crack" bark yesterday wasn't good for me BUT I know what went into that and more importantly what didn't much like today's selection. Baking bread is something that's always been hit or miss for me. Some days were great and some days not so much but I keep trying and I think I found a good "quick" bread recipe for all of us. I will not call this beer bread (even though it has beer) because so many will just stop reading and give up including my own family. I did not tell any of the 5 people who ate this bread there was beer in it and none of them asked if there was when they were eating it and the Hubster well he's usually the first to taste beer in something!!

Let's bake some HomeMade Bread peeps..two kinds!!

3 cups AP flour (sifted!!)

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/4 cup sugar (may adjust depending on bread type)

12 oz beer (room temperature)

1/4 cup butter (divided & melted)

Beer notes: I used a super light beer for the first batch because I didn't want to "taste" the beer. I just wanted to "use" the beer for it's yeast. I'm a "user" baby!!!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Grease your loaf pan

Mix the dry ingredients and SIFT!!!

Do not skip this step...Sift and then sift again

Not kidding, I sifted this twice!

The entire Universe will thrown off balance and you will be the blame if you don't sift

actually you'll just be baking bricks in the oven but hey, if you LIKE eating bricks go ahead.

Now add the beer to the dry ingredients and stir to combine

I just love all the bubbles!!

Now pour in about 3/4 of that melted butter into the mixture and combine

Add it to the loaf pan and then pour the remainder of the melted butter on top

Pop into the oven and let bake for about an hour.

Let's do a second version because we're having chili and I want something that can stand alongside a hearty dish!!

This version was exactly the same EXCEPT I cut the sugar down to about half of the previous amount and I switched to a Shiner beer. I kind of wanted a little of the beer flavor to come through in this one, it still didn't taste like beer just a heartier flavor

Then I added a super heaping cup full of cheese and instead of the jarred jalapenos I found some frozen fresh ones in the freezer. I just deseeded and deveined those peppers and chopped them up and added to the mix.

This got mixed and baked just the same and now I give you the finished products!!