Baking Your Own from Scratch-Literally

If you have been following my blog, you know that I bake bread. I have previously posted about it here. Now I find that there are others.

Who knew?

Gardenserf has a post up that asks the question if baking bread will become a revolutionary act?. I would note that there is currently a bill in the Senate, S510 that could potentially make it much more difficult for the small producers of food to remain in business. Senator Burr, whom I have supported in the past is a sponsor. Grrr.

I have not actually ground my own wheat, and at my age I probably never will. In any case, this area is not known for growing wheat, so I buy Gold Medal Bread flour.  King Arthur and Pillsbury Bread Flour are also good, but I find Gold Medal to be an excellent value that makes a very tasty loaf.  I substitute part of that for rye flour if I want to make rye.  I would also substitute a part if I wanted to make a bread with a more wheaty character.  I substitute only a portion of the bread flour for whole wheat because it is difficult to make a decent loaf out of pure whole wheat, and what you are likely to get looks a lot like the loaf Gardenserf made.  Such bread tastes good, but it is a very heavy.  Rye, barley, millet, and other grains do not produce gluten, so are not suitable for bread making, except as additives for flavor.  I substitute part of the bread flour with all purpose flour if I want a softer loaf.  The only difference between all purpose and bread flour is the mix of wheats used in them, with the bread flour having a higher portion of high gluten wheats.

Now there, you probably know more about flour than you ever wanted to know.