An inside day

We had some great family work time this morning.  It was time to catch up on some baking.  I got my best 9yo helper and we went to town.  It is amazing how much fun it is to bake together.  He said, "I like this kind of work".  We got to visit,  practice some math and reading my writing while we measured, mixed and baked.  We made bread and hamburger buns.

Whole Wheat Bread

4 cups warm water

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup honey

1 Tb salt

2 heaping Tb. vital wheat gluten

2 Tb. instant yeast

fresh ground flour (hard white wheat)

I love my bosch for bread.  Nothing kneads the dough as well.  Add all ingredients to the bowl with only 3 cups flour and yeast on top of the flour.  Begin kneading with the kneading arm and add flour until dough pulls away from sides.  Allow to continue kneading for 10 minutes.  Shape and put in greased bread pans or smash small balls on a cookie sheet to make buns.  Bake bread at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  Buns cook faster.  I slice all the bread, bag each loaf and freeze the ones we are not using.  It keeps it tasting much fresher although we will use it up in less than a week.

We also made muffins.

Carrot Raisin Muffins

5 cups whole wheat flour (I use soft wheat)

2 cup sugar (or sucanot)

5 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 tsp cinnamon

3/4 tsp ginger

combine in bowl.  In separate bowl combine :

5 beaten eggs

20 oz can crushed pineapple

heaping 1/2 cup shredded carrot

heaping 1/2 cup raisins

2 1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Then mix all together just until moist.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes in paper lined muffin tins.  This is a big batch.  It made 36 muffins.  I 2 1/2 times the orginal  recipe so that I could use a full can of pineapple.  The freeze great.

Blueberry Muffins

1/2 cup sugar or sucanat

1/3 cup butter

1 egg

1 1/2 cups whole wheat (soft white) flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 cup milk

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in egg. Combine dry ingredients and add alternately to creamed mixture with milk, stirring gently.  Fold in berries. Grease or us paper in tins.  Bake 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Makes 12 muffins.

These are the books we are currently reading.  After a morning of projects some read aloud time is welcomed by all.  We recently finished The Lightning Thief.  I'm not sure how I feel about it but I do believe once was enough.  Do you have any opinions?