A Rainbow In Your Sky: Bread, Brownies and Baking

So I am weird about a couple things. One of them is healthy food and the other I'll explain another day in another blogpost. :)

I believe that we should all be able to eat healthy, nutritional food without added crap to it. Yes. Homemade brownies will always be better for you than boxed brownies. Homemade bread will always be better for you than bought at the store refined flour bread.

So, alas, I bake!

The first recipe came while I was looking in my cupboards for things I had. I am an avid bread maker.

It was freezing cold last night and the smell of baking bread was ever present in my mind as I watched How I Met Your Mother. So I grabbed a standard bread baking recipe and added steel cut oats, molasses and honey and out came the most delicious bread ever.

YUMMY RIGHT!!!! Here's the recipe....

Eat Your Heart Out Honey Molasses Bread

1/2 cup of steel cut oats

1 cup warm water

dash of sugar

1 packet of yeast (2 1/4 tsp if you have it in a jar)

3 tablespoons of unsulfured molasses

3 tablespoons organic honey

1/4 cup unsalted butter (I don't fudge with REAL butter on bread recipes)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

~4 1/2 cups organic and/or fresh ground whole wheat flour

Glaze:

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon honey

handful of oats for sprinkling

Make steel cut oats according to directions. Usually it's 1 1/2 cups water boiled with 1/2 cup steel cut oats for about 25 minutes in a saucepan. Set aside when done.

Pour 1 cup of warm water (100-110 degrees) in a 2 cup measuring cup. Sprinkle yeast and dash of sugar over the warm water and stir. Let stand until yeast dissolves. About 10 minutes.

Mix together molasses, honey, cooked oats and butter. Add yeast mixture and continue to mix. Add flour one cup at a time until dough is moist. In my opinion it's better to underflour than overflour at this stage. You want the bread to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes.

Pour dough out on floured surface and knead dough until it is nice and elastic. Add more flour if you need to. About five minutes. Make dough into a large ball and place it in a buttered bowl. Cover the bowl with a wet towel and put it in your oven with just the light on to rise. I find putting it in a slightly warm oven (like turn your oven to 200 and then turn it off before putting your dough in) helps it rise faster. Let it rise for an hour or until it has doubled in volume.

Punch it down and knead it again for a couple of minutes. Butter (or crisco/flour) two bread pans. Cut the bread in half and place in pans. Spray the tops of the loaves and put wet towels over them. Let rise for another hour in the oven.

Bake bread at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Then lower temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.

Top bread with butter/honey mixture and throw some oats on it.

DONE!

Ok. Brownies. Again, with the baking on cold nights. I'M HORMONAL AND CAN'T HELP IT.

Eat What You Want Brownies

2/3 cup raw sugar or splenda (if you don't usually cook with splenda, I don't recommend... only because there is a taste difference in my opinion)

1/3 cup olive oil, earth balance spread or yogurt butter

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 free range egg

1/3 cup cocoa powder (preferably dutch processed organic or all natural)

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup yogurt (I used blueberry, you can obviously use plain) or lowfat sour cream (I substitute these in almost all of my baking!)

1/3 cup finely chopped cherries or raisins (optional, gives it a chewy factor)

Mix wet ingredients until well blended. Add dry ingredients. Mix well. Put into greased pan (a smaller one) and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Don't over bake!