Around the traditional eight Sabbats the internets are plastered with memes wishing everyone a Blessed this or that. Social media feeds are bombarded with articles explaining the Sabbat, in case you've been living under a rock and never heard of it before, much less celebrated it. And the onslaught of often perfectly arranged Sabbat altar pics. Because, proof. I'd like to believe we can all agree this is the time of the First Harvest, traditionally the wheat harvest. This isn't arbitrary or symbolic, either. This is really when wheat is harvested. I have seen the barren fields with my own eyes. I drove around yesterday in fact with my family to our Aunt & Uncle's for a special celebration dinner, and being in farm country I can verify the wheat fields had been chopped clean. So you can believe me, or drive to your nearest wheat field to verify for yourself.
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| Behold the barren wheat fields of yesterday. Also there's a sunset. |
If you are intimidated by breadmaking, fear not. I bring you a foolproof bread you can't mess up. It doesn't even require kneading. I gotchu.
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| my actual cookbook |
Peasant Bread
Ingredients:
- 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour, OR 3c flour + 1 c graham flour
*measure scant cups of flour and level (I use a scoop to pour loose flour into my measuring cup and resist the urge to make more fit)
*graham flour is just graham crackers you crush with a glass, jar or rolling pin into unrecognition (it's OK if some pieces are a little bigger than others)
*one package of graham crackers, or about 9 full crackers, equals about a cup of flour
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt (it can be any salt you like, doesn't have to be kosher)
- 2 cups warm water
- 1 Tablespoon sugar or honey (I always use honey)
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast, or 1 packet of yeast
- butter, like maybe a quarter stick, or a half, up to a whole stick if you are like me
Instructions:
- Use the butter to grease two medium pyrex or oven-safe bowls of equal size, bread pans, muffin tins or a Le Creuset, which is a fancy type of cast iron pot (like this pretty blue one my mother-in-law gave us as last year for Yule- she's the best). Whatever you use will determine the size and shape of your finished bread. Again, you can't really get this too wrong. I have used two or three different sizes and shapes of cooking vessels for the same batch and it's all OK. Use what you have. Don't be shy about how much butter to schmear around. If you're unsure about how much to use, the exact unit of measurement is Lots-O-Butter. That's the safe, recommended amount. Butter is your friend. It won't hurtcha.
- Now, to the breadmaking- get a big bowl for mixing. Put in the flour (or flour mix as you see fit) and salt, and whisk them to blend it.
- In a smaller bowl (needs to hold at least two cups liquids), or maybe a pyrex measuring cup, add your warm water and honey or sugar and stir to dissolve. Don't let the water be too hot or it will kill the yeast, or too cold or it won't activate. You want goldilocks water. Just warm enough to dissolve the honey.
- Add the yeast to the honey water. You can gently stir but not much is needed. If you don't stir it will be OK, too. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes or until nice and foamy. Some yeast is more riled up than others, so your wait time will vary. I've had mine done as soon as 5-7 minutes, but usually whatever is going to happen has happened by the 15 minute mark.
- Pour the yeast water into the bowl with the flour/salt mix. I like to use a baby rubber spatula to scrape out all the clingy yeast from the sides so it all gets in there and none of the yeastie-beasties get wasted. My husband, the locally acclaimed breadmaker (Dave's Bread as we call it), does not do this scrapey-step, for which I scowl from afar, but to each their own.
- Using a wooden spoon, spatula, or any spoon of your choosing, stir the flour and water gently until blended. It will be wet, like goop. Remember this is not a kneading dough.
- Scrape from the sides and cover with a clean tea towel or kitchen towel.
- Let the dough rise inside the covered bowl in a warm place for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. I prefer the two hours but if you're impatient you can cut it short a half hour and it'll be fiiine.
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
- Now, here's the fun part. Get yourself two forks, I like the bigger dinner forks for this, and because the dough is so wet, we're going to punch the dough down with the forks, and do some folding.
- Take the towel off the bowl. You should see the dough has risen quite a bit.
- To punch the dough down with the forks, just poke at it several times. Here's a great way to let off some steam if you want to picture stabbing someone. Stab, stab, stab. As you stab, scrape from the sides as the dough recedes under your violent assault.
- Then you'll transition into a more loving foldy approach (bad cop/good cop). Use the forks to turn the dough (which is a cowering ball-like shape in the bottom of the bowl) and fold it on itself. Do this several times until it feels like you got all the sides. I maybe do it about 4-8 times.
- If you have a pastry scraper, you can use it to divide the sticky wet dough in half. If not just use your forks to divide it down the middle and separate into two.
- Put each half into your ever-so generously buttered vessels. Seriously, the more butter you use the better the crust will turn out. The wet dough should only take up about half or a little less of the vessel, because trust me it will rise a goodly amount when baking. If you want to do muffin tins, just portion it out with a spoon or fork into each well-buttered or cupcake lined (and buttered) compartments to the half way mark or just under half. If the two halves take up significantly more than half of your vessel, switch to a bigger one or do a second baking cycle if needed. If the dough is taking up significantly less than half of the pan or bowl, go down a size. You can also do just one larger pot/bowl/pan for a bigger loaf.
- Cover the pans or bowls with the tea towel again and let rise for another 30 minutes.
- Remove the towels and put in the 425 oven for 10 minutes.
- Reduce the temp. to 375 degrees and continue baking for about 22-25 minutes, up to 35 minutes or so until you feel like it's golden brown enough. Check it every 5 minutes after 20 minutes until you're happy with the color. Now, if you are easily distracted, impatient or multi-tasking, and become derelict in your duties as oven watcher and go sit down for an episode of Scandal and forget about your bread, not hear the timer and jump up after it's been in for 45-50 minutes...it's gonna be OK. You just can't hurt it. Ask me how I know.
- Remove the bread from the oven, and turn out onto cooling racks. The bread should fall right out thanks to your bounteous usage of butter.
- Now enjoy!
This bread goes really well with soups, slathered in more butter, gravy and other immersibles. It also makes great garlic & cheesy bread, so experiment and have fun with it! And of course, Happy Lammas.
With Love in Light & Dark.
~Solaris Moon
