Mom’s homemade bread!

I walked into the back door of Mom’s house on Christmas Eve and stepped back 40 years to my childhood. The aroma was unmistakable. Mom was baking bread! Growing up in south central Kansas, we were surrounded by wheat fields. Mom baked bread 2-3 times a week to feed Dad, my six brothers, a sister and me.

There’s nothing like a slice of fresh bread just out of the oven topped with real butter and homemade sand hill plumb jelly!

I gave Mom a hug and asked if she needed help with the bread. She smiled and said all that was left was to slice it. I was good at that. As we sampled a piece or two, we discussed her favorite recipes and techniques she used to make it raise just right and bake into a golden brown loaf. She lamented the fact that she couldn't make as good a loaf as she used to. She uses Crisco shortening now. Yes, it was a vegetable base and contained no cholesterol. But it didn't make as good a loaf of bread as lard! We agreed fried chicken was also better with lard!

Suz and I had been thinking about making bread on “Dragonfly.” We have an oven, cook biscuits for breakfast, but never got around to bread. At home we have a bread maker and make bread for pizza crusts, “Aunt Viv’s” cinnamon rolls. Suz used to make a lot of bread when we farmed in the late 70’s.

Wouldn't fresh bread be great with a hearty stew on those early spring sails that are just around the corner?

So with the Super Bowl a week behind us, I hit the web and started searching for bread recipes for cruisers. Suz pulled out her essential cruisers recipe cookbook she had just bought at Strictly Sail in Chicago. We also pulled out a couple of old recipe books including a 1974 version of “Betty Crocker” we received for a wedding gift.

Our criteria was a good bread, few ingredients, and easy to make one loaf. We settled on a small version of Mom’s recipe.

1 cup flour
1 ½ tsp. yeast
1 tsp. sugar
½ tsp salt
1 cup water
1 tablespoon margarine
1 ½ to 2 cups additional flour

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add the margarine to the water and heat in the microwave to 125 degrees to melt the margarine.

Combine water/margarine with dry ingredients. Add additional flour until it starts to make a ball. Dump onto a floured cabinet and kneed in additional flour until it the dough is soft and silky, but not sticky.

Put back into the bowl and let rise until it doubles. We heated the oven to 100 degrees, turned it off and place the bowl inside. It took about half an hour.

Punch the dough down and dump out onto the floured cabinet. Form into a loaf and place in a greased bread pan. Let rise until it doubles again. We put it back into the warm oven for another 30 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes. More detailed description can be found in any good cookbook.

The bread turned out great on the first try! Almost as good as Mom’s.

As we finished our second slice, we began to plot other options. One had used beer. Suz always has Bailey’s Irish Cream on board. One suggested olive oil and Italian seasoning. What about “Aunt Viv’s” cinnamon rolls?

We decided on beer bread as the second option. We used the same recipe as above, substituting a cup of Killian’s Red Irish Beer for the water. Everything else was the same.

It was also great! It had a little more of a “yeasty” taste. The color was also a little darker.

This was a fun afternoon project. We are looking forward to more experimenting and have fresh bread on the boat this spring.

“How would you make Bailey’s bread?” Suz wondered out loud. Would you use ¾ cup of water and ¼ cup of Bailey’s; or substitute Bailey’s for the tablespoon of butter; or …..

An update... more bread

We have tried several different recipes for bread over the last few years. We've found an Italian dried tomato bread. It goes great with spaghetti, lasagna and most soups and chilies.

Italian Dried Tomato Bread

1 cup flour
1 ½ tsp. yeast
¼ cup sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
¼ cup diced dried tomato's
¾ cup water
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 egg
1 ½ to 2 cups additional flour

Mix the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, Italian seasoning, and tomato's. Mix the olive oil and egg with warm water.

Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients. Add additional flour until it starts to make a ball. Dump onto a floured cabinet and kneed in additional flour until it the dough is soft and silky, but not sticky.

Follow the instructions above to form the loaf and bake.

Enjoy!!