Baking Bread

We made whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread yesterday afternoon.

Grace read the entire recipe and worked with Jack to measure all of the ingredients.

Jack's favorite part was kneading the dough.

Eve loved playing with the flour while Grace and Jack measured the ingredients for the bread. I love how the flour sprinkled the floor below Eve's chair. :)

Grace and Jack worked together to place the bread dough into bread pans.

Kneading!

The recipe that we used for our cinnamon raisin bread was taken from a book called Horn of the Moon Cookbook - Recipes from Vermont's Renowned Vegetarian Restaurant:

Ingredients:

3 cups warm water

2 tablespoons dry baker's yeast

2 tablespoons organic honey

6 cups of organic whole wheat bread flour

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 tablespoon salt

2 cups organic raisins

In a large mixing bowl, combine the water with the yeast and honey. Stir and allow to dissolve for 5 minutes. When yeast begins to foam, add 3 cups flour to form a moist sponge and stir in well. Cover with a towel and set aside in warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

Add the oil, cinnamon, salt and raisins to dough, and mix in. Add 3 cups more flour and knead dough about 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking.

Divide dough in half, form into loaves, and set in oiled 9 x 5-inch loaf pans. Cover and allow to rise for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375 degrees after bread has risen in pans for 30 minutes.

Bake 50 minutes, or until bread is golden on top. Remove bread from pans and knock on the bottom of the loaf; if the bread sounds hollow in the center, it is done.