Ok. I did reply to some of my readers that I will post up my awesome, slightly sweet, oh-so-soft homemade bread, with no preservatives, no artificial coloring, no eggs.

The whole reason for going back to the basics in terms of food is because I’m always looking out for ways to feed my second child who is allergic to eggs and sea food. While I was doing my research, I came across information about bread additives that are detrimental to our health. You can read about it in my article Is your bread bad for you and your family?

My sister-in-law’s bread

I did want to post up a picture of my bread, but somehow it disappeared from my computer when I was transferring the images from my camera to my CPU. Luckily, my sister-in-law and I were baking up a storm and she took a picture of the latest bread, baked by her, which is a whole wheat bread. Frankly, I thought all the bread we made looked fairly alike coming out my my mum’s 20 year-old oven, so I thought I’d show you how the whole wheat bread looked like even though the recipe isn’t whole wheat.

I’ve tried baking whole wheat bread, and I did a 2 part white flour and 1 part wheat flour combo as well but the 1 1/2 year old kiddo just won’t eat it. I do realize a big portion of the population used to eating commercial white bread probably won’t like homemade wheat based bread because it’s very dense compared to the commercial bread … which is why this recipe is a white bread recipe. My game plan for my almost 2 year old son is to slowly add some whole wheat flour a little at a time into the bread that I make until he gets used to eating better bread.

I have to tell you, this bread is perfect, and so soft and moist. Really, you should use this recipe if you have not baked any bread before, and want to wean your family off commercial bread if they are used to soft fluffy bread.

Ethan’s Oh-So-Soft Bread

1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons honey
a sprinkle of ground dry ginger
a pinch of citric acid (you can find citric acid at the bakery, usually next to the Konnayku jelly or also known as Konjac jelly)
2 teaspoons granulated lecithin (purchased at the organic section of the supermarket)
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons instant active dry yeast

I found out from another blog, the secret to the soft moist bread is the ground ginger, tiny, tiny pinch of citric acid and lecithin. You can try with or without these ingredients to see which you like better.

1. Combine warm water, milk, brown sugar, honey and dry yeast. Stir. Let it sit for about 5 mins to foam up.

2. Add flour, salt, ginger, citric acid, lecithin. Mix. Make a hole in the center of the flour mixture and add the wet ingredient and oil.

3. Knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10-15 minutes. You must need it properly or else it won’t rise as the gluten in the flour mixture is not developed. I need it by hand because my Kenwood Chef machine is broken. But really, to save time and energy, you can use any machine with a S hook or just dump the whole thing inside the bread machine to knead. If you don’t wish to bake or you made extra dough, you can keep the extra dough in the freezer in a airtight container for later use (don’t let the bread you intend to freeze rise. It will rise when you take it out of the freezer before baking). Just shape it and pop it into the freezer.

4. Place dough you wish to bake now in a greased bowl. Greeze the top of the bread as well. Cover it and let rise at a warm spot until doubled, about 40 minutes. I once saw a video where the guy took a clean plastic bag and wrapped the bowl and all in in. I thought it was a very good idea because we can just reuse the plastic bags we bag our vegetables (you know, like at the supermarket) instead of using a disposable plastic cling film that just does not do anything for the environment.

3. Punch dough down; knead for a few minutes until smooth and then form into a loaf. Place in greased loaf pan and cover. Let rise in a warm place until almost doubled in size again, about 30 minutes.

4. Bake the bread at 350 degrees Farenheit (or 175 degrees Celcius) for 30-35 minutes.

5. Remove bread from oven and allow to rest in pan for a few minutes. Remove to a wire rack and cover with a cloth. Slice and enjoy while still warm! Leftover bread can be stored in an airtight bag or frozen until needed.

6. If you want to bake the frozen bread, just take the bread out and let it rise overnight, before baking the bread in the oven in the morning.

Speaking of bread, what do you guys think of this latest fashion taken from http://www.dadadastudio.eu/shop/?i=40#?

Shoes made out of bread? Apparently, the website says, these shoes are meant for wearing. It’s art but fairly expensive art you can’t eat. Would you pay for it? It’s €62 product + €8 shipping and handling = €70 total.

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More on additives and bread that you eat

• Malaysian Bread Statistics You May Not Know
  Is food making people around you crazy?

Also, here’s two recipes to go with bread

• Homemade butter
• Homemade healthy uncooked jam

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The Zojirushi BB-HAC10 Home Bakery 1-Pound-Loaf Programmable Mini Breadmaker is the most awesome bread machine in my opinion, especially since it makes just enough bread instead of a large loaf.

I dislike leftovers, and making a small loaf is what I like. Just click on the picture to find out more about it.

A few days ago, my children’s nanny, Ika, passed a beef dish over to the neighbor’s maid, also named Ika, who has not eaten meat in 2 years. Apparently, the family she stays with are very strict vegetarians. They don’t even eat onions and garlic.

Anyways, after she ate the beef, she broke out in rashes! It could only mean one thing. She’s allergic to beef !

Beef is an integral food for Indonesians, just like beef is something Americans eat all the time, like beef steaks and hamburger. So she’s going to have a hard time when she goes back home.

The problem is, she was never aware that she was allergic to beef …. at all. So it’s something good for her to know. Unsuspected allergies can cause multiple problems in the body if it’s not removed from the system. The body will try to fight the allergy, and the cells in the body will remain inflamed when it’s sick. And a sick body can shut down. The body will try to tell us something when it’s sick. You may get stomachaches, or maybe liver problems, maybe headaches, or worse cancer.

A lot of people have allergies, but they are not aware of it. And get surprised when they fall ill.

So listen to your body now. Don’t wait until there’s something seriously wrong before you act.

Jasmin

ps Finally, I got my own domain name. Do you like it? It needs a bit of sprucing, and I’m still learning how to use this sytem, which I admit, I’m not used to. I’m currently in the process of shifting my blog from http://eatrawfoodtoday.blogspot.com/ so, meanwhile, please bear with me. You can still visit my old blog to read the old posts.