Tag: buttermilk

Buttermilk White Bread

My mother used many different liquids to make bread. Water of course, but also potato water she saved when she boiled potatoes, milk, sour milk and buttermilk. Each of them changed the texture and flavor of the breads, but we devoured them all. For us, bread really was the staff of life. I think that we had bread for every meal except those when we had pancakes or waffles.

If we exclude the cinnamon rolls and sticky buns that she made with egg batter doughs, my favorite breads were the ones she made with sour milk or buttermilk.

Buttermilk adds a subtle flavor to bread and I like the texture. This has become my “basic” white bread recipe, at least when buttermilk is available. Whenever possible I like to use hard wheat bread flour, but the recipe works with all purpose flour as well.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups buttermilk
1 package or 2 heaping tsp. active dry yeast
2/3 cup water
2 T butter
2 T sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
5 to 6 cups white flour

PROCEDURE:

Put 2/3 cup warm water (90º to 110º) in a cup with 1/4 teaspoon sugar and stir in the yeast. While the yeast is proofing, warm the buttermilk to about 110 degrees and pour it into a large bowl. Stir in the salt and sugar. Melt the butter and add it to the buttermilk.

Stir in the flour one cup at a time, beating thoroughly between additions. After three cups of flour have been stirred in, mix in the yeast. Continue adding flour one cup at a time until the dough becomes stiff and begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

Let the dough rest in the bowl for five minutes, then scrape it out on to a well floured work surface with a spatula and use the spatula to turn the dough to coat it with flour before starting to knead it. Powder your hands with flour, and knead the dough until it is smooth and satiny, about seven to eight minutes.

If you have never kneaded dough, you should check out Wikihow.com for an excellent lesson on kneading or go to Thekitchn.com for a good video showing you how to do it. Actually, doing both is a good idea.

Return the dough to a greased bowl, roll it to cover the surface lightly with grease, and cover the bowl with a damp towel. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in bulk. Punch it down and knead it on a lightly floured work surface five or six strokes, then divide the dough into two parts. Form the halves into loaves and put them into greased 9 x 5 inch pans.

Cover the pans with the damp cloth and set them in a warm draft-free place to let the loaves rise. Preheat the oven to 375º once the loaves have started rising.

When the the dough has risen to slightly above the top of the pans, put them on the center shelf in the oven. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 350º and bake 25 to 30 minutes longer.

After 25 minutes, remove the loaves from the pans and tap on the bottom of the loaves. They are done when they sound hollow. Bake an extra five minutes or so on the oven rack if necessary.

Remove the loaves from the oven and cool them on a rack. Slice with a serrated knife and serve with butter, jam or whatever!

NOTES: If there is no buttermilk in the house, make sour milk with two tablespoons vinegar and enough milk to make two cups. Mom greased her bread bowls with lard, vegetable shortening, butter, oleomargarine or even bacon grease. They all work, though you may notice slight differences in flavor.

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits

Having been taught how to make baking powder biscuits by my sister Patsy, I soon started thinking about the wonderful whole wheat baking powder biscuits that our friend Toni made. Toni had a little hand-powered mill that she used to grind her own whole wheat flour. The freshly ground wheat berries gave a wonderful nutty flavor to the biscuits.

I don’t have a flour mill or Toni’s recipe, but these biscuits have  that nutty flavor anyway. The whole wheat, butter, sugar and buttermilk work together to produce biscuits that are light, fluffy and tasty.

They are great with sausage gravy or eggs for breakfast or with soup for lunch or dinner, and they are just sweet enough to make you want to pop one in the microwave for a few seconds, spread it with butter and gobble the little morsel before you go to bed.

Here’s how to make them.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 T sugar
½ tsp. salt
¼ cup butter
3/4 – 1 cup buttermilk

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thoroughly mix the flour with the baking powder, soda, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. Cut the butter into half inch pieces and blend it with a fork or pastry blender into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse corn meal.

Stir the buttermilk with a fork into the dry ingredients, adding more buttermilk if necessary to moisten the flour. The dough should be moist but not wet.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and turn it with a spatula to coat the outside lightly with flour. Flour your hands and knead the dough 12 to 15 times, then pat it out until it is about ½ inch thick. Cut the dough into rounds with a biscuit cutter or a floured drinking glass. Knead and pat the trimmings lightly and cut more rounds.

Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet and bake them for 10 to 12 minutes.

NOTE:  As with regular baking powder biscuits, do not knead the dough more than just enough to get it to pat out on the counter or breadboard.  Kneading too much makes for tough heavy biscuits.