My Bread Recipe

Although I fail in many ways as a wife and mother, I do love to bake and cook. I've been promising a friend for months that I would post my bread recipe here on my blog. So here goes.... (this recipe came from my sister-in-law, Heidi, which came from Pantry Secrets located here in Utah). It is delicious and easy!


Pantry Secrets Bread Recipe

10 1/2 cups white bread flour or wheat flour (sift the white flour)

1/2 cup sugar or 1/3 cup honey

1 Tbsp. Salt

3 rounded Tbsp. Saf-Instant yeast (this is a special yeast that works with dry ingredients...it does not need to be proofed with liquids)

3 Tbsp. liquid lecithin OR FOR WHEATBREAD 4 Tbsp. liquid lecithin (this replaces oil...it tends to make the bread more moist)

4 cups hot tap water OR FOR WHEAT BREAD add 1 cup applesauce as part of water

Mix the dry ingredients. Add lecithin and water (don't measure the lecithin. Just pour and guess!)

Mix for 1 minute and check consistency. If dough is too dry, add more water. Dough should be very sticky and be sticking somewhat the side of the bowl. Mix for 5 minutes for white bread (10 min. by hand) or 10 minutes for wheat bread (20 min. by hand).

(I should go back and redo the picture above...maybe I will. The dough should be a little stickier!)

Do not add flour to the dough after it has finished mixing. Spray the counter with cooking spray. Shape loaves and cover with a dishtowel.

Let rise 25 minutes. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

This recipe makes four loaves of bread. Use 4 x 8 inch pans.

I usually only make 2 loaves at once. My kitchen-aid seems to handle that better. If you have a bigger mixer, then 4 loaves at once would be great...less work!

Good luck! It's hard to go back to eating store-bought bread when this is so good and so easy. I also buy bread bags and ties and I freeze my extra loaves.

This recipe can also be used to make more delicious goodies...like dinner rolls, bread sticks, and cinnamon rolls. That post may be for another time.

My New Best Friend

Megan, meet the KitchenAid Mixer. KitchenAid, meet Megan.
And so the love story begins...with the appliance I never knew I always needed.



I have been making my own bread for a while now...hand kneading it and everything.

The plan this past year was to purchase a KitchenAid Mixer at a Black Friday sale...but my parents beat me to the punch. They surprised me with one when they came out in October. Fabulous, right? I use it multiple times a week.
And to top it off, my husband bought me a wheat grinder attachment.

I haven't bought bread in 4 months.

And now I don't buy wheat flour.

I love this machine.

On another note, I just realized my blog started doing "comment moderation" all on its own. Sorry to the comments I just discovered back from November.

This Morning

Every morning (upon waking) I go through the same battle in my mind. Do I work out? Do I start cleaning? Do I start breakfast for the kids?

This morning I woke up (before anyone else) and fixed myself a cup of hot chocolate. And a slice of pumpkin chocolate chip bread (made from 100% freshly ground wheat flour...more on that later). It felt good.

And then I worked out.

I have yet to clean and get breakfast for the kids.

I think it's going to be a good day.

Merry Christmas...a little off key

Sewing has been on my to-learn list for years now and I finally did it!...with the help of my mother and the Dixie Community Education sewing instructor. The pajamas (on the older boys) were my first sewing project. They took 6 weeks to make and I made almost every mistake possible (thank goodness for seam rippers)...but they ended up turning out OK.

My favorite mistake was when I tried to sew the front of the shirt to the back and asked the sewing instructor if it was right. Her reply..."If you're a double amputee..."

I hope these hold up in the wash......

The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden

"For God has given us rich brown soil, the rain and sunshine too." I always see this song as I flip through the LDS Children's songbook but I don't think I've ever heard the melody. For our garden, the Hanks Family might have to add the "rich brown soil"...and the rain...but southern Utah will definitely provide the sunshine.

My yard has been begging for a garden ever since we moved into this house last year. There is a raised patch of dirt in the corner of our yard that just screams "Plant something!"

(don't be fooled by this questionable piece of our property. It will be TRANSFORMED when it is time to transport the plants).

We started today by sowing our seeds in some soil. The kids helped and were so excited to be involved. Noah informed me that he will only eat the cucumbers and we'll have to give away the tomatoes, squash, and peppers. We'll see. The kids are excited about the pumpkins that we will hopefully harvest in the fall.

We'll keep you updated on our successes and failures as we take on this summer project.