Its bread baking day on the homestead. I always have sourdough starter in the fridge when I want some tangy and filling sourdough bread. I also go through a lot of potatoes making potato starter for sandwich bread. Hubby loves cracked wheat, so I am making cracked wheat bread today for him. I'm also making English Muffins for myself, as that's my favorite breakfast in the morning, a toasted English muffin slathered with peanut butter, hot and dripping over the edge, and a small spoonful of homemade jam topping it all off. That, and a cup of Teeccino, since we don't drink coffee, and you can't ask for a better breakfast! And English muffins are so very easy to make. Every now and then I'll change it up by making cranberry almond yeast bread or cinnamon raisin yeast bread. In midwinter, when the kitchen wood range is keeping the room toasty, I love to set a batch of salt rising bread. Its a finicky bread to make, but so very worth the effort for something different every now and then. Toasted salt rising bread with butter and homemade apple butter slathered generously on top is a real treat!
I generally bake once a week. I make the bread for the week, usually a sandwich bread, an artisan bread or an Italian bread, and English muffins. I then take the leftover breads from the previous week, as long as they are stale but not moldy at all, and if I am in need of breadcrumbs (and use a lot of bread crumbs not only for casserole toppings and meat loaf binder, but for old fashioned bread crumb griddle cakes too), I dry slices of bread in the oven and grind them up into crumbs in my food processor or blender. If I don't need bread crumbs, I'll turn whatever bread is left over, even English muffins, into various bread puddings depending on my mood for that week. Bread pudding is so versatile and forgiving and it can actually be a healthy dessert if you're using wholesome whole grain breads, which is our favorite. We rarely make white bread, preferring oatmeal, cracked wheat, or 5 grain bread instead. I usually add flax seed meal, wheat or oat bran and/or wheat germ as well depending on the type of bread I'm making, so our bread puddings are always full of whole grain goodness. Because we raise honey bees, I have the luxury of baking our breads with real honey too. I think our favorite bread pudding is Pecan pie bread pudding. Decadently delicious!
As a rule, for health and weight control, we only eat other baked goods on holidays. So I make hubby a cake for his birthday, I bake an easter cake, we have cookies on Father's Day, cherry pie on the 4th of July, whatever I'm in the mood for on my July birthday, and an all-American apple pie on Labor Day. We'll do fall themed cupcakes for Halloween, snowstorm squash pie to commemorate the first snowstorm of the year, Pumpkin everything (cookies, muffins, pancakes and waffles and of course pumpkin pie) for Thanksgiving week. Christmas is usually traditional New England goodies, like Whoopie pies and Needhams (potato and coconut candies. Delicious!) We generally don't eat desserts other than these, unless the grandkids are having a birthday and we make the drive to celebrate with them (they are 4 hours away, so it depends on what day of the week birthdays land on.)
Bread pudding, usually made with fruit (Apple caramel, Peach praline, and blueberry pie bread puddings) are what we usually eat for weekday dessert if there was any stale bread left after making crumbs for the week. Some weeks we have no desserts when we eat all the bread or I need a lot of bread crumbs for the coming week's meal plan. I do admit to making extra bread in the hopes of having some left over. If I send hubby to work with leftovers instead of sandwiches, we will most assuredly have bread leftover, so that's often my strategy too.
Do you bake bread? What's your favorite? Do you have a baking routine, like a set baking day or anything? I'd love to hear it!
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