Baking Bread: Attempt 1

One of the most difficult aspects of Barrett's nut allergy has been finding bread that is safe for him to eat, but that we also like to eat.  Prior to his serious reaction when he ended up at Primary Children's hospital overnight, I bought all our bread at the Great Harvest bakery in Salt Lake.  It is seriously the best bread, they use very few ingredients and it's so delicious and good for you too.  However, they use a lot of nuts and we had to give it up.  Since then I've mostly bought Prairie Grain whole wheat bread.  It's made locally in Salt Lake and when I called to check on it I was told that the owner of the company has a nut allergy also, so the facility is completely nut free.  I thought I was home free.  The bread, while not as good as the bread from Great Harvest is much better than whole wheat bread by Sara Lee or Nature's Pride and most other grocery store varieties.  In my opinion, most of those types of bread make you feel like you are eating a sponge.  

In April we did some more blood tests on Barrett and it turned out that he is more allergic to sunflower seeds than he is to peanut butter.  I had gotten rid of all peanut butter in my house and replaced it with Sunbutter, made from sunflower seeds.  I did that first of all because I thought it was safer for Barrett and second of all because the girl's elementary school is peanut free, but they can take Sunbutter sandwiches in their lunches.  (I've heard that next year there will be no Sunbutter either as an incoming first grader is also allergic to sunflower seeds.)  Well, the Prairie Grain company does make a sunflower seed bread.  Twice this year Barrett has thrown up shortly after eating lunch and both times he had had a sandwich with the Prairie Grain bread.  Of course, he's also eaten it many, many times and been fine, but I can't think of any other explanation.  So I've about decided to make my own bread that I know is perfectly safe for Barrett to eat and is healthy and tasty to boot.  I'm still working on the tasty part.  My Mom has a bread recipe that she loves that calls for applesauce and part whole wheat flour and part all-purpose flour. I decided to try that recipe, since it's good and only requires one rising.  The recipe makes two loaves, but I only have one loaf pan in the larger size, so I decided to make one loaf of bread and turn the rest of the dough into cinnamon rolls.  It didn't occur to me to take photos until I already had my loaf of bread in the pan.  

Bread ready to go into the oven.

I think I did a pretty good job of shaping the

bread for my first time trying. 

Other half of dough rolled out for cinnamon rolls.

The dough brushed with melted butter.

I actually used half unsalted butter and half Earth

Balance spread, so it wasn't all saturated fat.

The next step is to sprinkle on cinnamon and 

brown sugar.

My raisins had been sitting the fridge for awhile and were

very hard so I soaked them in hot water to plump them up.

After draining them, I put them on a paper towel to

soak up any excess water.

Then I sprinkled on top of the cinnamon sugar. 

I rolled the dough up, starting with the long side.

I use the trick my Mom taught me of using dental

floss to neatly slice the dough into circles.

Here are the rolls ready to go into the oven.  I

actually got nine rolls, but put three in another pan.

If I'd used all the dough for rolls I would have gotten

three pans of 6 rolls each.

Here they are just out of the oven.

I couldn't resist trying one for about more than one minute.

I didn't even bother putting frosting on them. 

The butter, brown sugar and cinnamon had caramelized on 

the bottom of the roll.  This one is shown upside down.

I baked the bread for a bit longer.  

Here it is just out of the oven.

I had another beautiful picture of it on the cooling rack that I accidentally deleted.  Oops.  But I'm not going to redo this whole post just to put it back in.  This is a slice of the bread.  I'm sorry it's out of focus, but you can see on the bottom left hand corner it looks a bit underdone.  We didn't cut into the  loaf until it had completely cooled.  I decided to put the loaf on a cookie sheet, cover it with foil and put in back in the oven.  I think I had it in for about 20  minutes or so.  I don't think it helped because when we cut into it again it was still not done.  I ended up ripping it open and this is what we found.

The middle was entirely raw, not just under done, but raw.  I could have probably pulled out that clump of dough and started kneading it again.  Needless to say it went in the trash.  I was just glad I'd made cinnamon rolls out of the other half, so it wasn't a complete loss.  I made this batch last week, but haven't had time to try it again yet.  When I do I will be baking the bread for a LOT longer.  

Utah History Year

Fourth grade is the year designated for the students to learn all about Utah history, geography and geology.  It makes for a fun year for the kids.  Last fall Blythe's class went on a field trip to Antelope Island and right before Thanksgiving they had a day long Mountain Man Rendezvous. At the rendezvous all the kids dressed up as either pioneers, indians or mountain men.  They did a square dancing demonstration and did some crafts and ate apple crisp and topped it off with a trading post in the afternoon.  Each child brought in some type of item to sell.  Some make dream catchers, others made bead necklaces or scented sachets.  Other more modern items included music mixes on CDs.  They had earned "beaver bucks" in their classes that they could use to buy things with or they could barter.  

This month the 4th grade went on a field trip to the This is the Place Heritage Park.  I was one of the chaperones and heard it declared the best field trip ever, despite the fact that one girl in Blythe's class threw up on two other girls while we were in the Blacksmith's shop.  The final event was the 4th grade singing concert.  All the classes had learned songs all about Utah.  The songs mentioned everything from Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers to the Olympics, to the meeting of the trans-continental railroad in 1869 to all the counties in Utah.  The kids were given the option of dressing up again and about half of them did.  

Last fall I supplied not just Blythe, but also her two best friends with their pioneer clothing.  All three dresses had belonged to me when I was about their age.  So I got calls from the girls again asking if they could borrow the dresses again.  Well, it had been a full 6 months since they had last worn them and Blythe no longer fit in the dress she had worn and her friend Madison, likewise had outgrown the dress she had worn last fall.  Luckily, Kaelena still fit in hers.  So Madison wore the dress that Blythe had worn and I had to come up with a new outfit for Blythe with one day's notice.  Fortunately for Blythe, my Mom is much handier with a sewing machine than I am.   From my stockpile of costumes in the basement I found a red and white checked skirt that my Mom made for herself sometime after she was married.  The waist just tied to fasten, so it was easily adjusted to Blythe, but my Mom was able to quickly put a tuck in the skirt so it wasn't too long.   We also found an old petticoat of mine and an old bonnet and she wore one of her own shirts.  Blythe ended up looking like a cute pioneer girl after all.  

The kids just before the concert started.

Blythe is on the back row in the middle. 

After the concert, wearing the bonnet

which she refused to wear while singing.

Blythe and her friend Madison.

A full length shot of the two girls.

Madison opted to not wear the bloomers.

Blythe wearing the dress last fall at the Rendezvous.

You can tell it was a bit small even then.

Blythe square dancing at the Rendezvous.

Barrett saw this picture of Spider-man outside the music room at Blythe's school and wouldn't leave until I'd taken his photo with it.  He and James are very into Spider-man now and I just bought him three new Spider-man t-shirts to wear this summer.  He still loves Cars, but Spider-man is coming in a close second.  I tried to video some of Blythe's concert, but Barrett wouldn't stop bumping me, so I gave up after about 30 seconds.  School is out this Friday.  I can hardly believe another school year has gone by and my girls will be in the 3rd and 5th grades next year!