Friday, October 12, 2012

Homemade Bread and Blueberry Jam

Ok, the cat's outta the bag. Produce from Sam's stinks...either that or I just have terrible luck. Probably both. Anyhow. Remember the raspberry jam I made a few days ago? Oooohh it was special. I dare to say it was better than my favourite homemade Cherry Orange Marmalade. Yes. It was that good. I had a sour batch of blueberries so I thought I'd turn them into jam--the results? Pretty gosh-darn-good. 

Here's what you need: a pint of fruit, and a cup of sugar. Yup, that's it.


Wash the fruit and put it in a small sauce pan on medium high heat. Add in the sugar


Let it cook


It will start to get a bit messy


Cook it until you like the consistency


Set it aside to cool


Store it in a clean jar, in the fridge


Now that we have all this fresh jelly let's make some bread. This is one of the best bread recipes I've tried. It turns out light and sweet and a bit crumbly. 

Gather your ingredients: Flour, water, sugar, oil, yeast, and salt


Start by activating the yeast. Let the tap water run warm and pour it to the mixing bowl. Add the sugar and the yeast


Swirl this around and let it sit  to rise for a few minutes


Now you can add the salt and the oil


Mix in one cup of flour at a time. Scrape the bowl, and let it mix for about 5 minutes until it forms a ball


Turn it onto an oiled plate, spray the bowl with oil, and return the dough to the bowl. Put the bowl in a warm (not hot) place. I stick the bowl in the oven, turn the oven on warm (about 170°) for literally 30 seconds, then turn it off. 


Let the dough rise for an hour, it should double in size


The fun part: punch it down and knead it around


Put it in an oiled loaf dish and return to the oven to rise for about half an hour


Turn the oven on and bake it for about 30 minutes


Take it out of the loaf pan immediately or it will get soggy


Fresh bread is pretty difficult to slice prettily


Try the blueberry jam


Good stuff



Ingredients: 1 loaf
  • 3 cups flour (all purpose)
  • 1 cup warm water
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 2 1/4 tsp yeast
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 2 Tbs oil
Directions: 
  1. Combine warm water, sugar, and yeast, allow to activate for 5 minutes
  2. Add salt and oil to yeast
  3. Mix in one cup of flour at a time on low speed, once it is all combined increase speed to medium, knead for about 5 minutes or until ball is formed and dough is pulled away from sides
  4. Turn dough out onto oiled surface, oil the bowl, and return dough to bowl
  5. Set bowl in a warm place to rise for an hour, or until doubled in size
  6. Punch down the dough and transfer to oiled loaf pan
  7. Set in warm place to rise for 30 minutes
  8. Bake loaf at 350° for 30 minutes
  9. Remove from pan immediately 

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