My Food on Friday- May 1 - Buttermilk Bread

OK, I was going to put up an entry about my sour cream and buttermilk experiments, BUT, they are on hold for a bit longer.

I was building up quite a supply of buttermilk and so I looked up recipes. I found pancakes, cakes, cookie bars, bread, pies, muffins- a lot of sounding great things. So, I ............... well let's just say I was over-whelmed with choices. I really hate choices.

I decided to put the buttermilk cooking on the back burner.

And while I was resting my brain from the reeling choices, I decided to put together some bread dough for bread and pizza. I headed to the kitchen and started to put the dry ingredients into the bread maker.

When it came to the liquid part, I had a thought. Watch out, thoughts are dangerous!, especially my thoughts! What I did was use buttermilk in place of the water, well not totally, because as I was rinsing out my measuring cup that had the buttermilk in it, I had another thought and threw that in as well. (Update: I now warm up the buttermilk and rinsing water before I throw it in. Saves a bit on the raising time and I don't have to warm up the oven earlier. I also might try warming the crock pot and letting it raise in there, if it is ever empty!)

Then I turned on the machine and let it start doing the work. I love my bread maker!! Such a slave in my kitchen- willing, able and non-complaining.

After the machine did it best work, it was time for the dough to raise. But because the buttermilk and egg were cold right out of the the dough had no warmth in it to activate the rising process.

Thinking again......... I turned on the oven and let it warm for a minute. Then shut it off and stuck my dough in an oiled bowl and put the bowl in the oven. I let it rise until doubled, then put part in a pan for bread, put part in a gallon zip lock bag and stuck it in the fridge for later. The last piece I began forming into a pizza crust.

The loaf pan was then placed back into the re-warmed oven to rise again.

I held the pizza dough in the bowl on the counter for a couple of hours. Then the pizza dough was put on a cookie sheet and I worked it out slowly to the shape I wanted. Then I let it rise on the stove top as the oven had heated it up from the bread baking.

We were finally ready to eat the bread and can you say GONE!! It went soooooo fast!! It was delicious and we all just loved it. Then we couldn't wait for the pizza to be done.

So the pizza was dressed, baked and cut. Devoured! OK, we only devoured half of it, but it was really good. Too bad it was a bit soggy when Hubby finally came home and was able to taste it. But he said it was good. Then kids and I think it was the best.

And I know that I have said this before, but now I have the favorite dough of all times. We are now using this recipe as our first and favorite for bread, rolls, cinnamin rolls and pizza. So here is the recipe, it makes 2 loaves of bread.

Buttermilk Bread Dough

3 cups flour (6 1/2 cups approximate total)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
3 tsp yeast (1 Tbs)

2 cups buttermilk
2/3 cup water used to rinse the buttermilk measuring cup
2 eggs
2 Tbs oil (we use peanut oil)

Bread maker instructions: (my bread maker can handle 6 to 7 cups of flour, if yours can not, you might want to cut the recipe in half.)

1. Put dry ingredients in bread maker - starting with 3 cups flour.
2. Add the wet ingredients. I warmed the buttermilk carefully in the microwave until it was warm, NOT hot. A temperature of 100 degrees is best, though I did not temp it.
   
3. Start mixer.
4. Add flour a 1/2 cup or so at a time until the dough is almost sticky-free.
5. Let the machine knead the dough.
6. Because of the amount of dough this makes, it is best to remove the dough to an oiled bowl for the raising. I always oil my hands for handling now, I used to flour, but oiling works better for me.
7. Let it double in size and then place in your bread pan, form into rolls, make cinnamin bread or make pizza dough.
8. I bake at 365 degrees for about 35 minutes on the bread. 15 minutes or so for the pizza and watch the rolls. I don't have perfect times yet, but I look for golden brown and hollow sounding bread. Sight, smell and texture are the best indicators for perfectly baked dough products.

Update: I baked the rest of the dough 3 days after I made the dough. The dough had spent the wait time in the fridge. I pulled it out in the morning and let it warm and rise in the bag. I probably should have put it right into the pan, but I wasn't thinking when I pulled it out.

After it rose about double, I baked it. We cut it when it was done. And it was quite amazing. It smelled and tasted just like sourdough bread! Loved that. I guess I need to do a bit of research to see how sourdough is made. But that will be later. No time for research. It makes really great buttered toast as well.

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