Bread in a Jar

As I have mentioned before, in order to stay within our grocery budget and make sure everything we eat is organic, we often buy in bulk. Currently, this means that I place an order with Hillcrest Foods and then pick it up from the driver in the parking lot of Our Daily Bread, a local bakery and restaurant.

This is fantastic. The flour is double bagged in a paper bag of 50 lbs. I can recycle the paper. When I get the flour home, I used to put the flour into half gallon mason jars for storage. This last time though, I got lazy and we ended up with a big bag of flour rolled closed on the floor of our kitchen. Easily accessible but not very functional as every time I needed to get into a bottom drawer cabinet, I had to move the bag.

This time, I got the flour and that night thought abotu making a loaf but it was already after 9 pm. I was tired and didn't want to stay up long enough for it to rise and then bake it. (Did I mention that the kids have been sick this past week and that the new baby is teething and not sleeping well? Do you remember those days? Right now, I am pretty tired from the sleepless nights and don't remember the nights either.) So Thursday night as I gave myself a peptalk about being a good mum and making sure that the kids had bread for sandwiches, I remembered seeing a post somewhere about bread in a jar. I decided that I would measure my dry ingredients into quart mason jars so that I could add the water and butter the next morning instead of having to do any measurements in the morning when the kids are full of energy. I felt thrilled with myself and promptly made them up.

Sandwich Bread Recipe
(makes 2 1lb loaves or 1 2lbs loaf)

Dry ingredients (add to jar):
1 lb 1 oz (approx. 4 cups) all purpose organic flour
2 tsp salt
2 TBSP organic dry milk
2 TBSP organic sugar* (if using honey, 1TBSP honey to add in the wet ingredients)
2 1/2 tsp yeast
Layer dry ingredients into jar.

Wet ingredients:
12 oz warm water
1 oz (2 TBSP) fresh organic butter
* 1 TBSP honey

To make:
Mix dry and wet ingredients in mixer for 18 minutes. (This is the mixing and kneading.)
Allow dough to rise until double in size (approx. 1 hour).
Turn mixer back on to punch dough down.
Place dough in buttered bread pans. (I use a long, huge double loaf pan but you can use 2 normal size bread pans.)
Allow to rise. (Approx 45 minutes depending how warm your kitchen is.)
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until bread reaches 180 degrees internally for a soft sandwich bread or 200 degrees internally for a drier, crispier bread.
Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 10 minutes.
Remove from pan and allow to cool before slicing and serving.

This article was shared Farm Blog Hop, The Prairie Homestead, The Backyard Farming Connection, The Chicken Chick, The Sustainable Couple, Tilly's Nest