Long-time readers will recall that for many months I whinged about the inconsistency of my bread. Sometimes it came out great, and sometimes it did the other thing. It was too moist, too dry, wouldn’t rise right.
Quite some time ago Mama Liberty sent me a document with a bunch of bread recipes. I fixated on this one, which is now my standard.
In her honor I call it ML Bread. Its great virtue is consistency. Unless I do something obviously brainless, this bread will come out right. Since I’m often called upon to supply bread for get-togethers, it’s done wonders for my peace of mind.
Because of altitude and lack of humidity I did have to play with the liquid content. I’ve settled on 2 3/4 cups instead of 2 1/2, and that works out well. Of course I can’t actually keep milk around; I just store a lot of powdered milk and only use it for baking.
By my standards this is a fairly complex recipe. I have to melt shortening, and it does use quite a lot of yeast. But it’s worth it.
I mix everything except the flour, then add flour until the batter becomes dough. It usually still needs about a cup and a half of flour when I dump it out of the bowl onto my floured kneading board.
The boys have learned that they have a part to play when Uncle Joel makes bread, and they’re quite willing. LB does a better job of this, but Ghost gets first refusal because he’s head dog. LB would make a lousy head dog.
Now it’s time for Uncle Joel’s workout. I keep up the kneading for ten minutes by the clock, adding flour as I go. This is where it’s easy to ruin the dough by going nuts with the flour in my dry environment. I want it still moist, so I play it by ear feel.
Ready for rising.
Pour a little oil in the bottom of a clean bowl, add the dough, rub oil on top, and then sort of roll the whole thing around until it’s covered. Then cover it with a towel and put it someplace warm and quiet, like inside the oven. Come back in about half an hour…
…and learn (again) that I should have paid better attention. That’s a bit too much rising, but not disastrous.
I dump it back out on the kneading board, gently roll it into a cylinder and cut it in half. Each half goes in a greased bread pan.
Give it another half hour or so…
And then into the oven at 350o for 35 minutes.
Gad, it’s beautiful!
Texture is firm and fairly dense, but not hard or crumbly. It can be sliced thin for sandwiches without coming apart in my hand like some of my earlier efforts. Any home-made bread will have a far different texture than store-bought, which is mostly air. And the flavor can’t be compared. Personally I can’t stomach store-bought sandwich bread anymore; it tastes like cardboard to me. This stuff has flavor.
BTW, if you’re going to make your own bread do yourself a favor and buy a decent bread knife. I get more practice than most, and even I can’t cut bread well with a cheap or badly-designed knife. This is an application where the right tool can make a lot of difference.
Ummm Joel, Just a quick comment. I have read, and been told that giving critters bread dough is not a terribly good thing (or for that matter, eating it yourself). It can expand inside them and cause all manner of woes. Perhaps someone else who knows more than I can chime in here….
If licking the bowl would hurt them they’d have been hurt a long, long time ago. Magnus once stole and ate an entire lump, two loaves’ worth, and didn’t even burp.
The bit about dough expanding in your stomach comes from the assumption that the yeast would survive in the stomach and breed uncontrollably. Yeast is fairly tenacious, but stomach acid is not conducive to unrestricted growth. The lack of a continuing supply of sugar is also a factor.
If yeast growth in the stomach were that big a deal, few people would survive drinking homebrew beer (or any other unpasteurized/filtered beer).
The only real issue with dogs eating dough is how much they get. They’re carnivores. But I don’t that they’re going to get enough to suffer nutritional problems from cleaning out a bowl. Dogs have been surviving human table scraps for millenia.
another myth busted. just trying to help…
Hey, no sweat.
Would you please post ML’s recipe? Your picture is OK, but not entirely readable. Thanks. rustynail
Are you casting aspersions on my handwriting, sirrah?
You probably should. Sure, no problem.
Ingredients are:
2.5 cups milk (I use 2.75 cups)
.5 cup melted shortening
2 eggs
4 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons yeast
Approx 6 cups flour
Mix all ingredients except flour, then stir in flour until dough is thick enough to form lump. Knead in more flour until the lump is the desired consistency, knead about ten minutes. Let rise, divide into two, let rise in bread pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
Thanks Mama L and Joel for the recipe. I’ve had some hilarious bread making attempts, and the altitude and dryness is probably the biggest challenge. I’ll have to try this.
Joel, being as how i’m batching as you are, I have a problem with the “pour a little oil into the bottom of a clean bowl” part. What is that? Jeff
Pour a little cooking oil in the bottom of a clean mixing bowl. Swirl it around a bit. You want to cover the whole dough ball with oil so the surface doesn’t dry out.
If anyone would like to have a copy of the booklet with all my favorite bread recipes, just send me an email with “bread” in the subject line. mamaliberty at rtconnect dot net Just replace the words at and dot with appropriate symbols and eliminate the spaces.
Instead of cooking oil, I use a “Pam” type spray on the bowl to raise my dough, but it works out just the same. A thin coat of oil of one kind or another is all you need.
The bread really does look great, Joel! And no, licking out the bowl won’t hurt the dogs at all.
As for melting shortening for the dough, I have a recipe that calls for cooking oil instead. Will have to look and see if that’s included in the booklet. If not, I’ll send it to you. But you can actually use cooking oil instead of solid shortening in almost any bread recipe. I just happen to prefer using either lard or coconut oil myself.
Yeah, I always figured it wouldn’t hurt anything to substitute oil for shortening. But I keep shortening around anyway, for biscuits and such, and have to use it up once I open it. So it’s not really a thing.
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How to do this gently? Screw it. Shortening, I suspect, is what you’d get if you covered an Occupy-type with penetrating oil & polishing compound & put him (her?) through a wringer.
Hmmm. Perhaps a little strong. Let me try another tack: I don’t know if you have Save-A-Lot stores near the Lair, but I’m sure there’s something similar. I give about $5 for a 4-lb bucket. Lard makes breads lighter, pie crusts flakier, & generally improves the hell out of the flavor, not to mention the obvious–the only way to fry! (Forgive me for that last–it also shows my age.)
I went through a lard period. Don’t care for it myself.
Wow–you desert hermit/Evil Overlord types have balls! Saying such a thing could get you horsewhipped in the South; worse yet, it could earn you a pitying “Bless your heart!” from an old woman.