My Whole Wheat Bread

Those who know me may not believe this, but it's the truth. I have been making bread for 20 years!
I am no expert, but when you start at a young age and several batches of bread each week for your entire growing up and adult life... you learn a few secrets of the trade. When it comes to Whole Wheat Bread, you want it to be as light as possible but still have that high fiber and homemade goodness, not like the store bought stuff that is full of air.

Here is my bread recipe.

1 T Active Dry Yeast
1 t Vitamin C Powder
1 T Salt
1 t Ginger
3 t Lemon juice
1 t honey
6 C lukewarm water
place in bowl and let yeast proof for 10-15 min
when done add
6-8 eggs
1 C oil
1/4 flax seed ground (if desired)
12-15 C WW Flour

Don't add all the flour in at once. you want to put in about 8 Cups first and get the ingredients mixing, then add the rest slowly as is mixes as well as adding up to 2 more Cup of oil (ish) as needed.
you're going to mix for about 7-8 min (so set the timer) and as it mixes add your flour and oil in till you have a nice soft stretchy dough.
I sometimes will stop the machine for a few minutes to check the dough's consistency and see how we're doing and how close we are to the end result.

Dump out into a bowl and let rise for 1/2 hr. (I like to put mine in the oven, with it off of course, and turn the oven light on. it keeps it warm in there and is a nice environment for the dough to rise in.)
Knead or punch down and let it rise again 1/2 hr.
Then it's time to put it in the pans and into the oven to rise the third time for 1/2hr then bake at 350 F for 30min.

if your loaves feel a little too soft or too light in color, bake them for another 10min.

Other baking...

Hints: finer ground flour will stick better. makes better bread. rises better.

            If the dough is too stiff, add more oil until soft

            If it’s too sticky, adding flower can help, but I’d also add oil so it doesn’t become too stiff

            Eggs will sometimes make the bread lighter and stick better

            DON’T FORGET SALT! I have found that forgetting salt will make the bread flatter and heavy! I don’t know why but it dose!

And you don't need Sugar!!! That's right, you don't need Sugar. All you need is Lemon Juice or Vitamin C powder or even Honey. I like to put all three in just for kicks, but anyone of these works great to give the yeast something to feed on.

Sewing project for June

so instead of a craft, we'll call it sewing... cause that's what it is!

SO I like dresses. Cute dresses to be exact. But it's hard to find dresses that fit me, are long enough, modest enough and are comfy... etc..

I saw this idea on Pinteres, (who isn't on Pinterest, raise your hand!) and thought,  hmm I want to try that. It looks easy enough for a beginner sewer like me. So I did.

Here it is.

I took 3 thrift store T-shirts in good condition... (you might want 4 if you're going for a maxi dress.

 measure and cut the bottom off your top

 then off the ones that will be the skirt, you want the bottom cut off just under the sleeves

 pin them together..

 if I ever find a fourth black shirt I may make it into a maxi dress... but for now it works!

 and it was very easy!!
happy sewing

S.L. Kliever