I'm Too Cheap for That!

So here's the deal, I have 4 boys in my house who all eat a lot of food. Seriously, A LOT. My sweet 4 year-old twins can out eat my husband and I am not kidding!

Thankfully, we already make most of our food from scratch, but one thing I was too scared to make since my bread machine broke, was bread. Real, handmade, home-made bread.

When my hand mixer died we decided to invest in a KitchenAid Pro 6-qt. It was a lot of money but we figured it could replace our bread machine and hand mixer if we invested in the best one (it had the 6-qt bowl and the really good dough hook). Let me tell you, it has been worth every penny!

After much research and experimenting, I finally have an incredibly easy & fool-proof bread recipe that I make using my KitchenAid, but you can just as easily do it by hand or I'm sure you could adapt it into a bread machine recipe quite easily.

Fool-Proof Bread

What you will need:

2 3/4 C of hot water

1/3 C cold-pressed canola oil

1/3 C honey

2 T molasses

1/4 T sea salt

6 1/2 C spelt flour*

2 T dry active yeast

*I often use spelt flour due to wheat allergies in my family but it works

just as well with white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour.

Put the water, oil, honey, molasses & sea salt in the bowl. Mix until combined. Add 2 C flour and mix until combined. Mix in yeast. Change to dough hook. Add 4 C flour and knead.

If dough is still sticky add more flour, 1/4 C at a time, until it is the right consistency. I sometimes add an extra 1/2 C. Never exceed 7 1/2 C.

Dough should be tacky, but not sticking to the sides of the bowl.

Now cover the bowl with a towel and let it rise for 40 minutes.

Sprinkle a little flour on your cookies sheet (for buns) or 2 loaf pans (for loaves). Knead the dough again to knock it back down. Drop the dough on a floured surface and knead a little until it is a little less sticky.

For buns:

Divide the dough in half. Take half and form into 24 balls of equal size (or more depending on the size you want). Place them fairly close together on pan so they don't grow too big! This will make pull-apart buns. Do the same with the other half.

For loaves:

Divide the dough in half. Take half and turn the dough under itself over and over again until you have a loaf shape. Drop into pan. Do the same with the other half.

Cover the pans and let rise until almost double in size (or until they are the desired size).

Preheat oven to 350. Bake for approximately 35 minutes.

Will yield approximately 48 buns or 2 loaves of bread. Let cool completely then place in brown paper bag and wrap in a plastic bag. Will keep fresh for a week pretty easily.

DO NOT PUT IN FRIDGE.

It's pretty fool-proof! If you try it, comment below and let me know how it works out! Don't forget to follow my blog!