Bread Baking: Yeasted, Sourdough, And Quick Leavened

Hello everyone!  I'm baking bread today and thought it might be nice to have a topic devoted to baking bread, as it was such an essential task for many households in the 1930s.  Also, I've included quick breads as I've come to understand that biscuits hold just as important a role as yeasted or sourdough bread loaves.  Before I learned to good biscuits 5 years ago (all my prior attempts were mediocre even if they tasted okay), I didn't really think of biscuits as anything other than something served at diners with breakfast.  However, a deep dive into my own southern roots (Arkansas and Tennessee) led me to learn how to bake a lovely biscuit and to read about their role in keeping families fed.

Today I am baking whole wheat loaves, after having baked white soft sourdough loaves during all of Advent and Christmas-tide, when my oldest was home from university.  He buys whole wheat bread when he is at school and very much misses my homemade sourdough.  I love the sourdough also, but like to eat more whole wheat bread than white bread, saving the white flour for biscuits, homemade hot dogs buns, etc.

How many of you bake regularly for your family, or wish to do so during this study?  Are any of you queens of biscuit making (I am sure I still have a long way to go)?  Do you keep sourdough starters?  How about bread such as naan or pita?  Let's talk about bread!

I'll post a photo tonight or tomorrow morning, of the baked loaves!

For the study, I've been making what I call the daily loaf, though I make it twice a week. It's wheat ground in my Vita-mix, and then I use Grandma Donna's bread recipe. I make overnight bread when I need to clean out the fridge or want to use rye or another grain. That gets at least half white flour and is baked in a ceramic bread baker. I'll throw cheese or herbs or random olives in it. I've used cinnamon and raisins. But the standard wheat loaf instead of overnight bread is what we've had lately because it looks like the pictures in my thirties' cookbooks. :)

If I want to make biscuits, I use Grandma Donna's recipe. It works well with half whole wheat flour too. But I usually make a lot of tortillas, flour and corn, instead of biscuits. I use dehydrated masa for my corn tortillas, and it's great to have on hand as a gluten-free thickener. Very tasty! Use it like flour but cook it a little longer to thicken. 

What I am trying to perfect is popovers. Haven't quite figured that one out yet. I've got some dehydrated sourdough starter and one day I'll get around to making sourdough. 

I just got done making the dough for a honey oatmeal loaf. It sits in the refrigerator overnight or up to 48 hours. Hope it turns out because I have a ton of oats. But I do love Grandma Donna's bread. It is so consistent.

I make good drop biscuits, but I would love to find a good real biscuit recipe.

Another simple bread that I love is focaccia. You can add so many different things to it and it is so good

Tabitha would you mind sharing your honey oatmeal loaf recipe and instructions. We love our oats here.

I wrote a huge post in reply and lost it when I tried to upload a photo and it was in the wrong format!

Stephanie G, I would love to see a photo of your overnight bread baked in the ceramic bread baker.  The only overnight dough I make is sourdough.  I used to grind wheat in my Vitamix but I wanted to do bigger batches without burning out the motor so I bought a Nutrimill 11 years ago.  Today I made 3 loaves (2.2# each) and a pan of dinner rolls, and it took 15 cups of flour.  I figure if I'm going to use the electricity for the oven I want to bake more than one loaf, and also my neighbor usually bakes her own bread but had surgery recently and I want to take a loaf to her.

I make tortillas too!  I use White Sonora for the flour since it is an heirloom wheat first grown in the 1600s in the Sonoran Borderlands, and it thought to be the first flour used for flour tortillas.  My husband and I both have ancestors from the Borderlands (he far more recently than I), and I like connecting with the past that way.  I have masa harina de maiz for corn tortillas, but a lot of times I'm lazy and grab them freshly made from the market.  That is a great idea to use the masa as a thickener!

I've never made popovers!  I did have a recipe for something similar that used tapioca starch so they would be gluten free.

Tabitha, I made focaccia a couple of weeks ago and was so disappointed!  It was a sourdough focaccia recipe from a well known influencer, but the dough didn't have enough salt.  I should have trusted my instincts, but I figured it would be balanced out by the salt on top.  Nope -- it was so bland.  We choked it down and then I made the rest into toasted bread crumbs so as to not waste it. Please do share your recipe and a photo if you'd like!

I make sweet milk biscuits because I don't tolerate buttermilk well (or yogurt).  I love making biscuits; I think because there is just that sense of connecting with the generations before me in my own family that would have made biscuits daily.  I feel the same way when I make challah, and even the first time I did it came so easily I thought it must just be in my DNA somewhere.

Here is a photo of my last batch of biscuits:

Here are today's loaves of bread, made from 100% hard white winter wheat, which has a lighter appearance and less bitter taste than hard red wheat.

Kimberly F That is so nice of you to take your neighbor some bread. :) 

The bread baker makes a huge loaf so we don't use it that much. Overnight rising lets you get away with dumping heavy things in the dough so that's why I make that kind when there's stuff hanging around I need to use. I have been wanting to make a pizza loaf with tomatoes, herbs and mozzarella but I am enjoying my thirties loaves for now. :) Maybe one day I'll post a picture of pizza bread.

I use the White Sonoran grains too. :) I learned about it from Grandma Donna, of course. ;) (There are a few things things I know how to do that I didn't learn from GD :) ) I've got some treated dried corn I could make fresh masa out of, but that's as close as I'll get to the fresh stuff here in the midwest. 

Your biscuits have so many layers! Did you have to beat them? Like to blister them? 

Oh wow, I've never met anyone else who uses White Sonora wheat berries, probably because they are so difficult to source being an heirloom grain and not grown by many farmers, and because they are a lower gluten soft wheat.  I don't use them in my wheat loaves, for those I use hard white winter wheat.

For my biscuits I use a folding method to get the layers.  I came up with it on my own and later found a recipe where the baker does the same thing, only she was grating her butter, so now I do both of those things.  I grate my frozen butter and use a pastry cutter to work it in.  I add the milk and mix briefly with a silicone spatula so I don't warm up the dough.  I turn it out onto a well floured silicone mat and use a bench scraper to bring it together.   Then using my hands I press it into a rectangle, fold it over with the bench scraper, press it again, fold it again, about 5 times -- any more than that and the gluten will start to develop.  The layers are part what happen naturally with the butter, and part from the folding.  I love flaky layered biscuits!  These are just heavenly clouds of biscuit!  Even if I use 100% whole grain like einkorn or White Sonora, I get lots of flaky layers, although they don't rise quite as high.

I saw that Grandma Donna grates her butter for pie crust and also uses a spatula, so I am going to give it a try.  It works so well in biscuits I bet it does well for pastry.  I also want to try her egg custard pie but I need to get evaporated milk as I don't keep it on hand and don't have any fresh milk to use instead.  I might try it with half and half though, as I have some of that and it is richer, the way evaporated milk is.

Yes, I've got the White Sonora grains, and an heirloom red wheat for my bread. I use wholegrain golden durum for my noodles. I also only buy hull-less oats, avena nuda. Grandma Donna's custard pie is good! Make it with the evaporated milk and save your half-and-half for quiche! Her recipe is just right. :) I'm going to give your biscuit method a try. :)

hi, I have an 8 ltr air fryer 

It only goes to 200c 

Most (all I’ve seen) recipes say to cook at 220/30c 

Anyone have a basic bread recipe that is cooked at 200c 

Please and thank you 

Kimberly F.- Your biscuits look amazing!!!!! I always want to make biscuits like that but they never turn out.

I will try and grab my focaccia recipe from work this week. But here is a picture of it

Cindy-It was my 1st time making the honey oat bread and it honestly was pretty bad. If I find a good one I will let you know

Tabitha, your focaccia looks wonderful!  It's making me think I'm hungry and I just had my dinner (noon meal).

I baked Irish soda bread yesterday for the Feast of St. Brigid.  I tried baking it in my toaster oven instead of the big oven, and it spread.  I think it is because the toaster oven doesn't hold heat in the walls the way a regular oven does, so a lot of the heat exits the toaster oven as soon as it is opened, and the soda bread ended up heating more slowly rather than the heat of the oven quickly firming up the outside crust.  If I want to use the toaster oven I will probably have to use more flour.  The bread was still delicious though!  This is what I call my sweet and rich soda bread, rather than a simple soda bread meant to have with soup or for sandwiches.  I accidentally added 1/3 C. sugar instead of 1/4 C., so I didn't add any jam or honey to my piece.

I have frequently read online about the different varieties of wheat that women in the US use for their breadmaking. Here in Australia even though we grow a lot of wheat, there doesn't seem to be any variety in the types available. There are alternative grains like spelt or kamut, but not different regular wheat grain. Does anyone here from Australia know if these kinds of things are available here at all? I have found online that there are 6 main varieties grown in the US - Hard Red Winter, Hard Red Spring, Soft Red Winter, Soft White, Hard White, and Durum, and that flour made from each variety is best for different baked goods. Clearly here in Australia we don't have wheat fields in areas of regular winter snows, so perhaps we couldn't grow them all here anyway?

I use Sonoran white wheat too! I grew up in the Sonoran desert and that’s what drew me to it. I buy the berries on Etsy and grind it myself. I love grinding my own grains. I mostly do sourdough bread..but I love biscuits too! Sometimes I will take the time to cut out the biscuits, but many mornings I just shape it into a flat circle and cut with a large knife into wedges. That way I don’t have to handle the dough so much. And if I am in a real pinch for time I will make Cream Biscuits. Which is just 2 cups of flour, 1 tablespoons of baking powder, 1 tsp of salt, and 1-1.5 cups of heavy cream. I’ve substituted for the cream before too with milk/yogurt or a mix of the two. 
Also use a lot of einkorn and rye

Anna G, it is so near to find other using heirloom grains, especially the White Sonora, and that you grind your wheat yourself too!  Although my mill is now making an awful squeal so my husband is going to see if there is anyway to service it at home.  I've been hoping to keep this mill functional until we achieve some more important savings goals and can then start saving for an Grainmaker mill.

I love how you make your baking work for you, cutting your biscuits like traditional scones and making cream biscuits when you're pressed for time -- it's a great reminder not to get caught up in doing things certain ways.  I think I'll cut my biscuits the same way next time I make them.

I baked three large loaves of soft sourdough sandwich bread yesterday.  The recipe is from Heather at North Ridge Farm (previously Beauty That Moves).  Even though there are only two of eating bread right now (our youngest has celiac disease and our oldest is away at university), I still bake three loaves because I save on energy that way, both in the electricity for the oven and the natural gas to heat water for washing up.  Soft sourdough is  long-lasting loaf that stays moist and fresh for as long as it takes us to eat it.  I tucked one loaf into the bread bin and wrapped and frozen the other two loaves.  These are quite large loaves, each taking 2# of dough.

Since I had the oven on I also baked a double batch of pumpkin muffins, and then when I was finished baking the bread I turned up the heat and baked our pizza for National Pizza Day!

Look what I found! This recipe is very very close to Grandma Donna's biscuit recipe! I have been thinking to add Grandma Donna's biscuit recipe to Myfitnesspal to see what the serving calories would be and then I find this! I got a good laugh out of this. 

I roasted some purple sweet potato (that we harvested last fall!) and had a large one left over. So I puréed it and used it in two loaves of sourdough. I was so smitten with the color through the whole process.  We ate some fresh and then I made French toast last night for dinner. 

Kimberly F, is that all Sonoran white wheat in your sandwich loaves? They look delicious

Hello Kimberly F.  I bought the Sonora white wheat and made tortillas and biscuits but my biscuits did not turn out mile high like yours! would you be able to share method and recipe? I admire your time management by the way! Take care Tami S.

Anna G those loaves are so gorgeous!  And you are talented with a lame as well!

The sourdough loaves I posted were made with Central Milling Organic Artisan Bakers Craft flour (the unmalted version, not the "Craft" variety).  I alternate baking with whole wheat and with unbleached white flour.  My son will be home in a couple of weeks for break, and prefers white flour sourdough, so I've been baking and freezing loaves.

Hi Tami S!  I think the biscuits I posted above were probably made with unbleached white flour and not White Sonora, although I do make them with the heirloom whole grain flour also.

This is my recipe, which I think is pretty much a basic baking soda biscuit.  It is based off my grandmother's recipe and a recipe for buttermilk biscuits from King Arthur Flour.  Unlike my grandmother, I don't use shortening, I use less baking powder (based on family stories I think hers was usually old and not very potent), and she didn't add sugar.  I don't make buttermilk biscuits as my body doesn't respond well to cultured buttermilk, and I don't bother to sour the milk, either.  I love to make these with half and half if I happen to have any.

• 2 C. all purpose flour or 2 - 2 1/2 C. whole wheat flour (I usually that I need about 1 1/4 C. of whole wheat flour to replace 1 C. of all purpose flour in most baking recipes)
• 1 T. baking powder
• 1 T. granulated sugar (can increase if making dessert biscuits)
• 1 t. fine salt, or 3/4 t. if you use salted butter
• 6 T. butter (I freeze mine and grate it), salted or unsalted
• 3/4 C. whole milk or half and half

This is how I make them:

• preheat oven to 425°F (about 218°C)
• sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt
• grate butter and add to flour mixture, then use a pastry cutter to blend butter in
• add milk and use a silicone spatula to mix dough until it is shaggy (I first learned to use a silicone spatula when working with einkorn dough as it starts out quite wet until the bran of the flour absorbs the liquids)
• turn dough out onto a floured silicone mat and use hands to push together gently, then form into a 1" rectangle (this is where I add more flour if needed)
• fold dough in half and press back out to 1", repeat this 4-5 times, stop if you feel some resistance from the dough starting
• cut dough with a sharp edged biscuit cutter (gently reforming dough as needed) and arrange in pan or on baking sheet, as preferred
• bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until tops are lightly browned

Kimberly F, Thank you so much for your detailed instructions! I will be trying these biscuits again. Wish me luck! I am also tackling flour tortillas from scratch working out that they end up hard.  I did finally start making good wheat bread weekly. I thank you again for sharing.

Tami S, for me, flour tortillas get too hard if I cook them too long, which sometimes happens if my comal isn't hot enough.  The other thing is to stack them and wrap them, which helps them be pliable.  I've also read that the choice of fat can make a harder/tougher tortillas, but I can't remember which fats are supposed to be best.  Personally I think lard gives a softer tortilla than oil, which can make a tortilla that seems more like cracker if it is cooked too long.

We tried our hand at bagels this morning!  They don't look perfect (and my photo was a quick one and not planned at all), but they were so delicious!

I bought some flour from Sunrise Milling in Minnesota. They use heritage wheat and grind in their own mill. It's nice flour. The whole wheat doesn't have the bitter taste I get with Wheat Montana flour. I got their five variety pack as it was on sale. It's definitely not cheap. I may buy a few more bags and see if I can locate some heirloom grains online. 

I tried the basic bread recipe from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book. That turned out really well. I am going to have to give up making bread with a crunchy crust. It's too hard for me to eat these days. And I still have to try out my Vitamix! I also have the Kitchenaid grinder, so that's what I used last time. Have not turned out anything as pretty as the loaves above though.