Pinterest and Whole Wheat Bread

I am absolutely in love with Pinterest and I am sure I am using it wrong. I keep hearing how Pinterest is the newest and greatest social network. My friends talk about losing so much time to Pinterest. For me, Pinterest has organized information in a way nothing else has. I read a lot online and I discover great crafts and recipes. At first I printed them out but that left me with too much paper. After putting all my recipes in a word file (currently many words files - all nicely organized), I started copy and pasting the recipes onto new word files. This worked okay, especially after I learned how to add those files on to my Nook but it still wasn't perfect. I couldn't always remember where I found a recipe and I felt odd coping someone's blog post into a word file. Some of those recipes became things I was no longer interested in and I couldn't save the pictures for most of them without completely crashing the system. I've tried adding sites to my favorites but for some reason I never think of my favorites and I hate the organizational formats for them. Then add to the that - I could only use those favorites on the computer which I saved them. (And never the computer I was on.) Enter Pinterest. If the site has a picture it can be saved into Pinterest (does make me rethink how blogs use pictures). You need an invitation to Pinterest, which is a little weird, but I had discovered it when someone sent me an invitation. Since then, many of my friends have asked for invites and gotten them within minutes so it's not super inconvenient. When you set up your pinterest, you create boards. The idea is that Pinterest is like a bulletin board - each board has their own theme as you determine. I didn't start out with a ton of boards and I'm thinking there needs to be a few new ones as I discover certain themes that don't quite match what I am pinning in them. I have boards for foraging, recipes, crafts. I even started a board this week for my dreaming. As I mentioned before - I'm starting a new phase in my life where I am really going to start reaching for my ultimate dream (my weird life on a farm). I started the board to help me share some of my vision with the wonderful woman who is helping me work on this project. It's been far too fun looking up things to pin. The best part of Pinterest is I can access it on any computer. I can save a recipe at work then go over to my dad's and pull it up. I can share with friends. I love that I have the original notes - not just ones I took. That way if something is missing from the recipe I can go over the discussion to make sure I didn't overlook something. Lately, many of my experiments have been coming from places I have pinned. That's the same with this whole wheat bread. I'm not going to re-copy the recipe this time - I didn't make any real changes. The only thing I did was use 10-grain flour that I think was stale. The flour left a weird taste but the bread was amazing. I can't wait to get through the remaining loaves (it made 3 loaves and a batch of rolls) so I can try again with just the whole wheat flour.

Pear Bread

Dinner last night - my husband made a beef stew and we ate it with a fresh loaf of french bread. We're out of flour and yeast after I made the dough for pizza tonight. We'll have to increase our flour purchases to atleast 10 pounds if we are going to make so many foods from scratch. We stopped by Safeway on Monday to pick up strawberries (3 pounds for $5). I walked down the baking isle to see what the cost of chocolate chips was and took the opportunity to check out their whole white wheat flour price. They've dropped the price to $4.99 and it's on sale until the 10th for $4.49. We'll get April's food stamps then and make sure we pick up 2 bags of flour. It's pricier than the all-purpose white flour but we like it and a bag of flour is about the same price as a loaf of whole grain bread so it works out.
This past weekend I made my mom's pear bread. I'm sharing my version of her recipe and her version. It's kind of fun to see how recipes are passed down in our family. We're not great with writing down the recipes. That's been something I have been working with and one of the reason's I thought I'd start sharing what we are eating. The only substitutions I made was using pumpkin seeds and dried elderberries (I used about 1/3 cup of elderberries and just covered them with boiling water while the bread rose the first time).
My mom is right - this is the best bread ever. It's dense but fruity and nutty. We've started eating it with cream cheese instead of butter and it's perfect. The recipe is so simple and so full of nutrition. I left on the peel for my pears and mashed them with a fork. Heating them made them more mushy and ready for the yeast.

Mom’s pear bread
1 cup pear puree
1 ½ teaspoons yeast
2 ¾ cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup walnuts
½ cup dried cranberries
Heat pear puree to warm. Add the yeast and let sit. Slowly add in flour until you have a firm dough. Let sit and rise until doubled. Knead in walnuts and cranberries. Set in greased loaf pan and let rise a second time. Bake at 350 for up to 30 minutes.

"I don't think you need the breadmaker. In fact I goofed when I added the fruit and nuts but it still came out really good. The pears we picked would just start disinegrating after you peeled and cut them so before long they were more like a thick pear juice so I use a cup of that, 2 3/4 cup of Bobs Red Mill whole wheat pastry flour 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast ( I think I would use a little more yeast and warm the pear juice and put the yeast directly in the pears and then after it starts to activate add the flour)."
"After the first rising I kneaded in the chopped walnuts and craisins, about half a cup of each by hand. The loaf only raised about half of the height of the breadmaker pan. It ended up being about a 4 inch cube but it was a good texture and just a bit heavy.So without a breadmaker I would use a smaller than normal breadpan. I also stopped the cooking before the given time. I cook by site so when it browned on top I figured it was done. Seriously the best bread ever."

Wheat and Flour Varieties

There are so many flour varieties that it can make one's head explode trying to figure them out. With this post I am only looking at Wheat flours. I have been trying to come up with a way to add more whole grains to our diet but whole wheat flour can be really dense and can change a recipe greatly. All purpose flour lacks the nutrients of whole wheat but is so much easier to use. Then you add things like cake flour and bread flour and I just want to curl up and cry.
So for your sake but mostly mine, I thought it was time to figure it all out. I did a google search with the hope of finding a perfect explanation but it didn't happen. I am using King Arthur Flour's site for some information and may have to google each flour as I go for more information.
Growing up in wheat country I have learned there are 4 basic types of wheat in American flours - Hard Red Spring Wheat, Hard Red Winter Wheat, Hard White Wheat and Soft White Wheat. I don't quite understand what the difference is between the two hard red wheats but they seem to have different properties. There are more varieties of wheat than just these 4 but they are the ones that seem to be used for most wheat flours.
All Purpose Flour is made from hard red winter wheat. The outside parts of the wheat are stripped leaving only the endosperm when ground. This makes the flour easy to use but not overly nutritious. There are two types of AP flour - bleached and unbleached. I can't explain the bleaching process but when possible I choose unbleached because it's just one less process the wheat goes through before becoming flour.
Bread Flour is made from hard red spring wheat. It has a higher protein content than AP flour making it produce more gluten which in turn produces a better bread. The gluten makes dough rise more and produces a chewier product (in a good way). You can "make" your own bread flour by adding gluten flour to AP flour but I don't have a ratio for you.
Cake Flour is produced from the endosperm of soft white wheat. This makes the flour very low in protein/gluten giving cakes a softer lighter texture. It's also ground finer than AP flour.
Pastry Flour is like cake flour but not as finely ground.
Whole Wheat Flour is ground hard red wheat that has all three layers in place. It can be used for any recipe but does require extra liquid.
Whole White Wheat Flour is made from hard white wheat that is ground whole. I have found that it works just like AP flour but has a higher nutritional value and more fiber.
Graham Flour is whole wheat flour that is more coarsely ground and is used in making graham crackers as well as other baked goods.
Self-Rising Flour is AP flour that has had a leavening added such as baking powder. It's in between AP flour and a biscuit mix and allows the baker to cut out the leavening.

Spicebread

I took this recipe from The Pleasure of Whole-Grain Breads by Beth Hensperger and changed it to suit my pantry. It's a nice gingerbread/spice cake recipe but not all that sweet and full of whole grains.
I will list the original ingredients at the end of the recipe.
Spicebread
1 stick butter/margarine
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup molasses
1 cup boiling water
1 TB instant coffee
2 teas baking soda
4 TB apricot brandy
1 1/2 TB cinnamon baking spice (similar to apple pie spice)
1/2 teas dry mustard
1/4 teas black pepper
1 cup millet flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
3/4 cup AP flour
1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
Cream butter with sugar until well combined. Add eggs one at a time. Add molasses in a steady stream and beat until all combined. Pour boiling water into glass bowl and add instant coffee (I did this in a glass measuring cup). Add baking soda to butter and egg mixture. Add spices and mix well. Pour in brandy and mix. Alternate coffee with flours and mix well until your batter is lump free and all wet.
Pour into a 9x9 pan (greased) and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

Original ingredients:
1/4 cup chopped crystalized ginger
3 TB finely chopped candied orange peel
3 TB cognac (pour these three in a bowl and let sit for 30 minutes before starting batter)
1 1/2 cups teff or millet flour
2 cups AP flour
2 teas baking soda
1 TB gd ginger
1 teas cinnamon
1/2 teas cloves
1/2 teas gd coriander
1/2 teas gd nutmeg
1/2 teas dry mustard
1/4 teas gd mace
1/4 teas black pepper
1 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup molasses
1 cup boiling water
1 TB instant espresso powder.