Wednesday, October 3,
2007
Honey wheat-germ whole-wheat bread
From left: Megan McQuivey
gets help from her children - Soren, baby Lachlan, Janessa, Jansen, and Logan - and her husband, James, as she
makes bread. "Making bread is kind of a lost art," McQuivey says, and she's determined that her kids will be
skilled bread bakers. (see story bekow)
Makes 2 loaves
1 1/2 cups hot
tap water
1 Tablespoon yeast
1/3 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat
flour
1/2 cup wheat
germ
3 Tablespoons shortening
or butter
3 cups unbleached
all-purpose flour, or more as needed
extra
unbleached all-purpose flour (for kneading)
extra
butter (for the tops)
1.
Have on hand two 8 1/2-by-4 1/2-by-2
1/3-inch loaf pans.
2.
Put the hot water in a small bowl and
sprinkle the yeast over it. Pour the honey on top. Set aside, without stirring,
for about 10 minutes, until the mixture is bubbly and frothy.
3.
In a large bowl, combine the salt,
whole-wheat flour, and wheat germ. Cut in the shortening or butter. Stir in the
yeast mixture and combine well.
4.
Begin adding all-purpose flour, 1/2
cup at a time, to make a workable dough. Butter a
large bowl.
5.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface
sprinkled with all-purpose flour. Knead for about 8 minutes, until the dough is
smooth and elastic. Place in the bowl, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and
set aside in a warm place to rise for about 1 hour.
6.
On the floured board, punch the dough
down and form it into two loaves. Place them, seams down, in the loaf pans.
Cover again and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
7.
Set the oven at 375 degrees. Bake the
loaves for 35 minutes, or until they are golden brown and make a deep, full
sound when you knock on the bottom of the loaf.
8.
Butter the tops of the loaves while
they're still in the pans. Turn the loaves out onto cooling racks. Leave to
cool for at least 10 minutes before slicing. The bread is best eaten the day
it's baked, preferably still warm.
—
Megan McQuivey
Homemade bread | One Cook's Best
Dish
The family that bakes together...
By
Jane Dornbusch,
Globe Correspondent
NEEDHAM -
For Megan McQuivey, "staff of life" is more
than just a turn of phrase. The whole-wheat bread she bakes for her family of
eight - husband James and their six children - connects her to the past and
future generations of her family, and to her Utah upbringing.
The tradition comes from her forebears, who were Mormon immigrants from
the British Isles. For them, wheat wasn't just
a hedge against hunger. As McQuivey puts it,
"Wheat became a metaphor for living, and a means of transmitting a culture
of hard work, sacrifice, and integrity." Growing up the oldest of 10, McQuivey was in charge of baking the weekly loaves, and she
learned to coax the best from wheat - how to grind it to different
consistencies for different types of recipes, how to distinguish one variety
from another, and most of all, how to make almost anything from it. That means
she's also good at cinnamon buns, flaky crescent rolls, Irish soda bread, and challah. Moreover, she's an enthusiastic cook who prepares
dinner just about every night and expects the whole family around the table.
"We are very firm about family dinners," she says.
But the simple, homespun whole-wheat bread is a mainstay in the busy
household. She's made it so often that she thinks nothing of tossing off half a
dozen loaves, and she's comfortable with any number of variations on the basic
theme. "Bread is a wonderful thing for a cook to experiment with,"
she says, helping five of the kids (baby Lachlan,
4 months, is a bit young to lend a hand). "It has just a few components,
and once you learn them, you can switch them around. Every change you make
makes subtle differences." Her favorite, and the one she calls her
signature version, contains honey and wheat germ.
McQuivey, 40, learned to bake the
bread from her mother, who learned it in turn from her mother. "Making
bread is kind of a lost art," McQuivey says, and
she's determined that her kids - Jansen, 15, Janessa,
13, Logan, 9, J.B., 7, Soren, 4, and little Lachlan -
will be skilled bread bakers.
Gathered round the table in their small dining room, they start by
measuring the yeast into a bowl of hot tap water; J.B. takes charge of this
task with help from his father. McQuivey reminds the
children: Don't mess with the yeast - that is, don't stir it in to the water or
play around with it, or it won't foam properly; make sure the water is good and
warm from the tap; and let everything rise twice as long as the recipe
instructs.
In just a few minutes, the mixture starts to foam.
"How's the yeast looking?" she asks the children.
"It's looking yeasty," answers Logan.
"I love the smell of yeast," says Jansen.
Soon, the flour is mixed in ("I'm not a measurer - I'm more of a
dumper," McQuivey admits), and it's time to
start kneading. She uses a mixture of white and whole-wheat flour, which she
grinds herself, generally in an electric grinder that churns out several cups
in minutes. She also has a hand-cranked grinder - "in case the power goes
out, or if the kids need good exercise." In keeping with their Mormon
faith, the McQuiveys try to store a year's worth of
food - wheat, beans, rice, and other nonperishables -
in the basement of their small ranch-style house. At the moment, because
they're planning home renovations, they're a bit shy of that goal: The basement
holds a mere 800 pounds of wheat.
Each child is given a lump of dough to knead - the perfect release for
youthful energy. It will rise, get punched down, and then be left to rise again, a slow process, but one that can be accomplished
while doing other chores. McQuivey had already made a
batch earlier in the day, so there's bread to sample, along with butter and
homemade strawberry jam.
The loaves are sturdy yet light, at once substantial, chewy, nutty, and
tender. It's easy to imagine them providing sustenance through a long Utah winter.
Or a New England one, for
that matter.