Versatility of Basic Dough Recipe

This morning, after I had taken our 3rd child to swim practice, I came home and started making bread.  I tripled the Basic Dough Recipe out of my Bread Beckers Recipe Book and started the dough going in my Electrolux Assistent.  After I kneaded it (using the machine) for 15 minutes, I put the top on the bowl to let it rise while I went back to the pool to take the 4th child and pick up the 1st and 2nd who swam really early this morning. I came back home and punched down the dough in the bowl to let it rise again. I let it rise for about 20 or 30 more minutes and shaped the dough into 3 different forms. After shaping and rising again, I baked the different breads. I typically put butter on the bread as soon as it comes out of the oven.  It tastes amazing and it helps keep it moist, especially if I freeze the bread.  We have discovered by trial and error that it is important to make your pizza crust as thin as humanly possible because it does rise.  I now use a rolling pin and put down enough olive oil to make it easier to lift the flattened dough onto the pizza pan. Today I had the best luck ever and we put pepperoni and chicken sausage on the pizza.  YUM!

 I decided to make pizza for lunch (see picture) with part of the dough, make a pan of rolls, and 2 loaves for French toast.  We will use the rolls for sandwiches later next week (or for snacking) and make French toast for another meal next week too.  I will put the loaves and part of the rolls in the freezer to keep them fresh until we need them.  I make the basic bread recipe at least once a week and usually try to keep a quick bread around like banana bread for my breakfast or the kid's snacking.

Basic Dough Recipe

1 1/2 cups hot water                  2 Tbs. lecithin
1/3 cup cold-pressed oliveoil     1 tsp. gluten
1/3 cup honey                           4 cups freshly milled flour
2 tsp. salt                                  1/2 cup ground flax seed
1 egg                                        1 Tbs. yeast

Combine water, oil, honey, salt, and egg.  Add lecithin, gluten, half of flour, and ground flax seed.  Mix thoroughly.  Add yeast and enough flour to make a soft dough.  Knead until smooth and elastic (15 minutes for a triple batch or 10 minutes if kneading a single batch by hand,  5-6 minutes for single batch with mixer).  Let rise until double.  Punch down dough and let rise again until double.  Shape as desired and let rise again until double.  For 2 loaves bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  For rolls, bake at 350 degrees for 17 minutes.

This recipe is valuable because you can use it for any variation you'd like...bagels, filled breads, rolls, pizza bread, pizza, cinnamon rolls, etc. Adding the flax seed and eggs also makes it a powerhouse of nutrition. Enjoy!!

After my husband did the final pick-up at the pool, we had a delicious and nutritious lunch...pizza.  It's not often that you consider pizza healthy and nourishing, but if you make it yourself it certainly is nourishing, healthy and delicious.

For information regarding purchasing the ingredients at the best possible price, see our earlier post.