Kneading

Today, we'll talk about kneading your dough.


The process of kneading your bread dough develops the gluten of your flour. Well developed gluten allows your dough to stretch so that it can trap gases, hold in air bubbles, and double it's size. The time to knead is after you've added flour until the dough is soft but not excessively sticky.


There are several ways to knead.

Hand Kneading - First, get comfortable. I find it easier to knead with arms out stretched and locked elbows so that I can use my body's weight to help with the kneading. A kitchen counter can be higher then you can comfortably knead, at least if you are my height. You may wish to move to a table. Rub some vegetable oil on the table and your hands or use flour to dust the counter and hands. Now position your dough in front of you and push the heels of your hands into the dough. Fold the dough over itself, and repeat. Occasionally give your dough a quarter turn. (This sounds complicated when written down. You need to come over so I can "just do it"! Or check online for some video tutorials.) 


In a few minutes, the dough will begin to feel smooth and elastic. To test if the gluten is developed. Pull a golf ball size ball of dough between your hands. It should stretch without breaking. 


Hand kneading is something that will come by practice and experience. Start with a small amount of dough. (pizza dough is perfect) With some experience and strengthening of your arm muscles, you can knead large batches of dough. Sometimes it is easier to divide a large amount of dough in half and work with them separately. Or call in some reinforcements. One lady said that she would divide her dough in small amounts of one loaf of bread each and call all her children into the kitchen to knead for a few minutes. Children often love to knead dough. Family togetherness while providing daily bread!

Machine Kneading - If your electric mixer is equipped with a dough hook, you can knead your dough in your machine. After adding your flour, turn your machine to medium speed. Usually you will knead for about 1/2 the time of hand kneading, about 5 minutes. Just stay close to your machine. Occasionally the dough will all go to one side of the bowl and cause your machine to "walk" off your counter! I once caught my machine just as it was falling to the floor! You can check your gluten develop by stretching the dough, as mentioned above.

Bread Machine Kneading - I have no experience with bread machines but I understand that you can use them to mix and knead your bread even if you prefer to shape your dough and bake it in your oven instead of finishing it in your bread machine.


No Kneading - It isn't absolutely necessary to knead bread dough. Recently there has been an influx of books sharing techniques to make wonderful bread without kneading. Usually they are using a wetter dough (higher hydration) and often refrigerating the dough overnight to eliminate the kneading. If you want to read more check out Artisan Breads Every Day or Artisan Breads in Five Minutes a Day. 

Question- Winter Egg Laying

My curiosity is getting the better of me and I have a question for all you chicken raisers.

Do you give your chickens artificial light in the winter? Why? And how do you think it affects egg laying?

Here is why I ask.

About everything I've ever read about raising chickens for egg laying says that you'll need to give supplemental lighting during the short days of winter to keep up egg production. It is one point that everyone seems to agree on - except two people.

My dad never gave his chickens light during the winter and he always had plenty of eggs. He did design a chicken coop with large windows low to the floor for lots of sunlight.

Gene Logsdon, in one of his books (forget which one), claims that the legend of chickens needing supplemental lighting was begun by the electrical companies to persuade reluctant farmers to attach their farms "to the grid".


Our chicken coop is out in our pasture and not near an electrical source. Our coop is a garden shed that we retrofitted for chickens by cutting large holes for windows and small hole for a door. 


Last year was our first year to have chickens. We had a small flock of heritage breed hens and they drastically cut back their laying in the winter. But we were expecting it and really weren't alarmed and they picked up laying again in the spring.

This year we have eight sex-link hens, a commercial type breed. They are young birds, only begun laying in October so they are in the prime of life. Nearly every day for the past three months, we have received eight eggs from these hens. Occasionally, we get only seven. The two old heritage breed hens that we keep as pets lay eggs occasionally as well. Since the breeds lay a different color egg, we know who laid what.


We have given them no light but sunlight. Their coop is uninsulated. We have experienced very cold weather this winter and every morning my husband has to dump the ice out of their water. They are fed grain in the coop. If there isn't snow on the ground (these girls hate snow) we let them out to run free in the afternoon. They relish the food scraps in the compost pile and try to steal cat food.


I'm just wondering what other's experience is. I don't think we could get any better egg laying production. Do we just have extra hardy hens? Or is supplemental lighting truly unnecessary? Of course, in commercial laying houses, lighting is necessary since no sunlight is available. But I'm talking about the home folks.Thanks for helping my curiosity!

And, yes, we are getting over run in eggs! We can't eat eight eggs a day. But it is a great "problem"  as everyone loves receiving a gift of fresh eggs.

Photos are of our five year old who presently has the chicken feeding/egg gathering job. The wire egg basket and coonskin hat are treasured gifts from his grandparents!

Miracle Bread

Ready to dive into bread baking? 


This recipe is the first bread I made when I was nine or ten years old. It really is simple and needs no kneading. I remember how pleased I was to have baked bread myself. 

The recipe for this bread was given to my mom years ago by a woman who worked in an inner city mission. As she encouraged city ladies and taught them homemaking skills, this is one of the recipes she used. They would roll the dough with a soda bottle since they didn't own a rolling pin!

There isn't anything particularly "miraculous" about it, so don't worry if you aren't feeling very wonder-working! But if you have never made bread, pulling a fragrant loaf of homemade bread from the oven, can truly seem like a miracle.

The dough can be used in a variety of ways. I'll demonstrate a long French type loaf, perfect for garlic bread. But you can put this dough in loaf pans or even make cinnamon rolls with it.

Miracle Bread

1/2 cup warm water
2 T  yeast
2 T sugar or honey

Mix together and allow the yeast to dissolve for a few minutes.


2 cups warm water
2 T melted butter or oil
2 tsp salt

Combine with yeast water.

6-7 cups flour

Mix in six cups of flour. Stir well by hand or mixer equipped with dough hook. If dough is too sticky, add a little more flour.

Form into a ball. Place in greased bowl and roll dough to grease the top of the dough.

Let rise for 30 to 60 minutes at room temperature. It should expand to double it's size.
Divide dough in half and roll out as you would pie dough.
Roll up as a jelly roll. Place it on a greased baking sheet.
Make diagonal slits across the top with a sharp knife.
Do the same with second ball of dough. Let rise about 1 hour or until double in size.
Beat 1 egg and 2 T milk. Brush egg mixture over top of bread.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds or poppy seeds.
Bake at 425 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. Try to let it cool before cutting into the loaf! Bet you can't! This bread is awesome with butter and a sprinkle of garlic powder!

Favorite Gardening Books

If you are plotting and planning your garden like I am, you may be looking for some good garden reading. (And if you hate gardening, choose some other topic to read about. I'm a great believer in the benefit of reading to learn something new and winter is the perfect time to pick up a book.)

I've been reading gardening books since I was a teen and systematically checked out about every gardening book in our library. There is a few books I refer to often and others that I'll probably never read again, yet in some way impacted my garden.



If I had to give up all the gardening books on my shelf and only save one, right now it would be Steve Solomon's Gardening When It Counts. I wrote about this book before, but there is so much in this one book that I keep referring back to it.



But if I had to recommend one book for a beginning gardener, I would choose The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Ed Smith. This book is a complete garden manual with many color photos which make it more readable and intensely practical.

After my top two favorites, the rest of the list is in no particular order. Just favorite books on various topics.



Four Season Gardening by Elliot Coleman - Inspiration on extending the garden season from a Maine grower. My review



The 12 Month Gardener by Jeff Ashton - Coleman's book inspires to action but this book gives practical tools, plans, and tips to make it happen. The author assumes you don't want to spend a ton of money or time!



Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel - How to store food without canning or freezing.



Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots by Sharon Lovejoy - Loved this book with it's focus on enjoying gardening with children. The simple explanations would be helpful for any new gardener.



The Backyard Berry Book by Stella Otta - Tips on all the small fruits.




Small-Scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon - My husband likes to read any and all of Logsdon books. Ed says that he likes the way Logsdon thinks.



Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza - Painless soil building and instant (almost) beds. I'm not sure I agree with using lots of peat but she does have some great ideas and lots of good plant lists.



Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver - Not a gardening manual but sheer inspiration. I read it one August when faced with buckets of tomatoes and it was the perfect shot-in-the-arm to bolster my energy.

I'm sure I've missed lots of good books. I haven't nearly read all the gardening books out there - so if you have a favorite, please share!