Okara Sunflower Apple Bread
Ok, no Vegan MoFo post for yesterday because we still had leftovers. One of many (many!) common ideas about food that I just don't understand is some people's disdain for leftovers. We actually cook in order to have leftovers here. It doesn't take significantly longer to cook a little more but if you get to skip a night in the kitchen, I'm all for it.
Speaking of "leftovers", we still have plenty of okara left over from making soymilk/yogurt. I decided to use some more today in some bread. Can't wait for the day when all our okara can grow mushrooms but today isn't that day. So, bread -
I think I may have finally gotten a little better with my bread baking skills and our "new" Bosch Universal Mixer. "New" because we've had the thing for almost two years now. We don't eat bread that often, however, which has made it a little difficult to fully make the transition between our old Automatic Bread Machine(ABM) and our new Bosch. You'd think you could just take recipes that worked in one machine and use them with the other, right? Well, it's not that easy.
One common mistake I tend to make is to mix my dough too dry. With the Bosch, I have to dislodge the dough, once it's finished kneading, halve it, shape it and put it in pans. If it's even slightly tacky, this is more difficult than I'd like. However, I broke down today and dealt with dough sticking to my hands and our bread was better for it. (With the ABM, the bread was kneaded and baked all in the same pan, so I never had to deal with this!)
Another tip I'd known about for a while, but not bothered to try, is using potato water to make homemade bread more tender. I'd written it off as too difficult because if we've cooked potatoes (and therefore, have potato water on hand), we've usually had enough carbs that I'm not looking to bake bread before the potato water goes bad. But a month or so ago, I finally decided to freeze some potato water in ice cube trays for future use.
One other "problem" with our Bosch is that it's huge. Seriously, most of the people who have and use these things are stay-at-home parents with tons of kids or are baking bread to sell. But we couldn't find good reviews of stand mixers for kneading dough and I was sick of the holes left in bread by the paddles in ABM's. Anyway, two loaves is the minimum amount of bread dough the Bosch can mix well. Anything smaller just takes a free ride on the dough hook and isn't kneaded at all.
This bread, though, turned out well enough that having two loaves is a good thing. Apologies for these measurements given in grams but I find it so much easier to bake with a kitchen scale, like this one. (At least this is more reproducible than one vMoFo recipe I've come across for cookies, whose measurements were given in "mugs" ???)
Okara Sunflower Apple Bread
- 300 g okara
- 50 g oil
- 195 g water (I later added 6 ice cubes (6 tbsp) of "potato water")
- 18 g molasses
- 45 g sugar
- 3 1/2 tsp yeast
- 30 g sunflower seeds, coarsely chopped
- 1 apple, peeled and chopped
- 3 - 4 inch piece of carrot, micro-planed
- 2 tsp salt
- 385 g bread flour
- the remaining ingredients plus whole wheat flour to equal 325 grams:
- 1/4 cup wheat bran
- 3 tbsp ground flax seeds
- 1 tbsp gypsum (for a little extra calcium)
- 2 tbsp wheat germ
The first 4 ingredients, I measured into a saucepan and warmed slightly on the stove. Then added my yeast to proof for about 10 minutes before adding wet mix to dry mix.
Add ingredients and mix according to your bread machine's instructions. Or by hand or however you make bread. (What, you don't bake bread? Ahh, you should really give it a try!! =)
Shape into two loaves and let rise for about 45 minutes - 1 hour.
Knock down and let rise again for about 30 minutes.
Bake in an oven, preheated to 425 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. (I did 20 minutes, with 15 minutes cooling (uncut) in pans).
I was a little distracted with my picture taking. Something about a house-full of fresh baked bread aroma and a warm-from-the-oven slice of bread waiting to be eaten -
