Category: Breads

Wild Yeast Sourdough Bread

When we first set out to capture the ‘wild yeast’ for our bread, I didn’t realize how easy it was going to be. Maybe we were just lucky. There are many ways to capture wild yeast to make your own starter and the results are as varied as the varieties of yeast ‘captured’.  We used the instructions on The Splendid Table blog to make our starter but there are many different approaches to capturing wild yeast to make starter.

Yeast is a microscopic fungus that reproduces by budding, and it is capable of converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. It is used in baking as a leavening agent. It converts the fermentable sugars in the dough into the gas carbon dioxide. This causes the dough to expand or rise as gas forms pockets or bubbles in the dough.

We captured the naturally existing yeast that was in the air and on the vegetation at Venoge. The bread we made we felt was our own!

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 1/2 cups warm water or Buttermilk leftover from making butter
  • 1 cup starter* made from wild yeast
  • 4 cups unsifted regular all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 cups unsifted regular all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon soda

*If you use 1 cup starter, you can reduce the flour and liquid in the recipe by 4 oz each and you will wait longer for the bread to rise the first time.  You can substitute the starter for 1 package of yeast, active dry or compressed and use the recipe as written.

VARIATIONS

  • Add 1/2 teaspoon each of herbs on hand such as dill, rosemary, and chives
  • Add crispy bacon bits and sauteed onions

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine water, starter, 4 cups flour, sugar and salt. Mix well and place in crock. Leave at room temperature 18 hours or until doubled.

Combine ingredients
Mix Ingredients
Let rise for 18 hours

Stir in 1 cup flour mixed with the soda. Turn onto floured board and knead adding remaining 1 cup of flour as needed. Add in herbs or bacon and onions at this time if you like. Knead until smooth about 8 minutes.

Add herbs while kneading
Knead until smooth
Cover and let rise again

Shape into one large round or two long loaves, place on lightly greased sheet to rise until doubled, cover. Brush with melted butter for a softer crust before baking. Slash and put into 400 oven for 45 minutes or until done.

Into bake oven
Out of bake oven

Recipe adapted from the Sunset Cook Book of Breads.

A slice of pumpkin and current quick bread

Venoge Quick Bread

Venoge Quick Bread is indispensable in the Venoge kitchen. This bread is very versatile and depending on what fruits we have on hand the taste of the bread can change dramatically. We have tried the recipe with pumpkin, sweet potato, applesauce, raisins, nuts or currants, even bits of candied ginger. Try using grated carrots or various cooked squash, it usually works fine. Spice it up with cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves.

We bake it in the bake oven or on the tin baker, as shown below, in front of the hearth.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 1 cup mashed or grated fruits or vegetables
  • 1/2 cup raisins or currents (optional)
  • 1 cup regular all purpose flour (sift before measuring)
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/3 cup hot water

Instructions

Melt butter and blend in sugar. Mix in beaten eggs and mashed fruit or vegetables. Sift flour with salt and baking soda. Stir in dry ingredients alternately with hot water.

Add eggs to melted butter
Blend eggs and butter
Add pumpkin
Add sugar and cinnamon
Add ginger
Grating nutmeg
Add nutmeg
Add Currents
Sift dry ingredients
Add dry ingredients

Turn into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan or a 9″ round pan (it will bake quicker in this). Bake in slow (350°) oven for 1 hour and 10 min.

Pour into pan
Place the quick bread in the Baker
A slice of pumpkin and current quick bread

 

Sweet Corn Bread

There are many kinds of corn breads and they come in many shapes. We usually cook corn bread in a round pan.

Jacob Weaver writes to his father in New York State in 1814 “The people here have another way of living than where you live. Their principle bread is corn, but not because they can’t raise no other sorts of grain.” Corn bread then is appropriate to make in Jacob Weaver’s house. We prefer a sweet corn bread.  Try our fool-proof recipe.

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup soft butter
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 1/2 cups sifted flour
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups yellow corn meal
  • 1 cup milk

Instructions

Mix sugar and butter, blend in eggs.

Mix butter and sugar
Place two eggs in dish
Beat eggs
Mix in eggs

Sift flour with baking powder and salt, add corn meal. Blend dry ingredients with the creamed mixture alternately with milk. Pour into buttered and floured 9 inch square or round pan.

Sift dry ingredients
Add cornmeal
Add milk
Pour into pan

Bake at 400° for 30 minutes.

Place in Baker
Remove from Baker

 

Doughnuts

We like to serve these delightful little sweet treats at our Country Christmas get together each December. Our recipe is adapted from The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hanna Glasse 1805. 

Doughnuts

To one pound of flour, put one quarter of a pound of butter, one quarter of a pound of sugar and; two spoonfuls of yeast; mix them all together in warm milk or water of the thickness of bread, let it raise, and make them in what form you please, boil your fat (consisting of hog’s lard), and put them in.

The Art of Cookery Made Plain & Easy, Hanna Glasse, 1805.

Since we cook the doughnuts in small batches they are somewhat labor intensive, however a larger kettle could be used for the oil or lard. As soon as they are done, drain and roll in a sugar-cinnamon, powdered sugar or eat them plain. The crisp outer crust is fantastic.

Ingredients

  • 3 1/2 – 4 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup warm butter
  • 1- 1 1/2 cups warm milk

Instructions

Heat oil to about 375°F. We fill our kettle half full with oil and heat it over the hearth.

Mix ingredients.

Add flour
Add sugar and yeast
Add butter
Add milk to dry ingredients

Roll dough out 1/2 inch thick. Cut in squares and let rise.

Roll out dough
Cut the dough into shapes for frying
Let the doughnuts rise before frying

Drop a few carefully into the oil. The dough should sink to the bottom then quickly float to the top as it cooks. 

Gently flip the doughnuts. These will cook quickly. Since oil temperatures will vary, cut one open to see if it is done and adjust cooking time accordingly.

Doughnuts frying in kettle of lard
Remove when golden brown

Roll in sugar or cinnamon sugar.

Coat with cinnamon sugar mixture
Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Onion Herb Bread

This bread smells wonderful just out of the oven and it tastes just as good. An incredible crust is created when cooked in the bake oven making this bread the perfect complement to our Venoge Summer Soup.

We use fresh herbs from our kitchen garden so the flavors vary from batch to batch in the summer. It pairs well with our Fresh Cheese with Herbs and also toasts well over the fire.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons butter
  • 1 package dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup warm water (for yeast)
  • 2 1/4 cups regular flour (sifted)
  • 1 tablespoon onion chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon each of herbs on hand such as dill, rosemary, and chives
  • Melted butter
  • Salt

Instructions

Gather and prepare herbs.

Gather herbs from garden
Chop herbs

Scald milk, remove from heat, stir in sugar, salt and butter. Cool to lukewarm. In a large bowl dissolve yeast in warm water. Add cooled milk mixture. Stir flour into yeast mixture. Add your selected herbs. Stir all together until well blended, about 2 minutes.

Scald milk over coals
Melt butter over coals
Combine sugar, salt and butter
Dissolve yeast in warm water
Add dry ingredients
Add herbs

Cover and let rise in warm place until tripled in bulk, about 45 minutes. Stir down, and beat vigorously about 1/2 minute. Turn into a greased 8-inch cake pan or 9-inch pie pan.

Bake in a medium oven at 350° for about 1 hour. Brush top crust with melted butter and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Cool on rack.

Cover dough and let it rise
Dough has doubled
Place in bake oven
Remove from bake oven
Onion Herb Bread

 

 

Round Loaf

This recipe was a surprise; it was simple and produced a beautiful, delicious loaf easy to cut.   It went well with our soup or plain with butter and jam. The original recipe called for slashing the top which also works nicely.

Our recipe is adapted from English Bread and Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David, Biscuit Books Inc., Newton, MA

Ingredients

  • 3 cups unbleached flour (approximately), of which 3/4 cup may be whole wheat
  • 2 teaspoons of salt (approximately)
  • 1 teaspoon dry yeast
  • A scant cup water

Instructions

Mix the yeast to a cream with a little tepid water. Stir the salt into flour.

Yeast
Cream yeast in water
Flour well
Add salt

Mix the creamed yeast into it, add the tepid water. Mix well and shape the dough into a ball. If it is too wet, sprinkle with little more flour. Cover, and leave in a warm place to rise.

Add yeast
Add water
Mix
Form into ball
Ready to rise

In an hour to an hour and a half the dough should have doubled volume and feel spongy and light. Scoop it up, and slap it down hard on a board. Repeat this three or four times. The more the dough is knocked down at this stage the better the loaf will be.

Begin kneading
Slap dough hard on the board
Knead more

Knead and roll the dough into a ball, place this in the center of a floured baking sheet. At this stage fold the ball of dough all round, tucking the edges underneath, so that the uncooked loaf looks like a little, round, plump cushion. If this detail is omitted, the loaf will spread out flat. Shape the loaf.

Ready to bake
Sliced Round Loaf

It is advisable to cover the dough while it is rising for the second time and the easiest way to do this is to invert a clean bowl over it. Once risen, you may now make slashes on the loaf; one from side to side the other two crossing that one.

Cook in a 450° degree oven on center shelf for 15 minutes and then 400° for the next 15 minutes. If the bottom is not done, turn upside down and leave in the oven for 10-15 minutes more with the heat off.

We baked our Round Loaf in the outdoor bake oven, the temperature was roughly 425° throughout the baking. We did put it back in upside down for about 15 minutes.

 

 

Charlotte’s Dessert Bread

This quick bread is dark and rich and has a distinctly different texture from others.  Finding extra space in the bake oven, we quickly combined ingredients on hand and created this uniquely simple bread.  Searching for an appropriate name we went to the first known housewife in the Venoge cottage, Charlotte Golay Weaver.

Charlotte Golay Weaver was born in 1787 in Le Chenit, a municipality in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland.  She came to live in New York state where she met and married Jacob Weaver.  They arrived in Vevay, Indiana in 1813 and by 1814 settled in a house owned by her father, David Golay.  As Jacob Weaver would write in a letter to his father in New York, Charlotte and Jacob lived “close to his door”.  We suspect Charlotte was the first to cook in the kitchen at Venoge. Charlotte, we remember you.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon soda
  • 1 cup cornmeal
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/4 cup currants
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup hot water

Instructions

Melt butter and blend in sugar. Mix in eggs. Sift flour with salt and soda and add to wet ingredients. Add cornmeal. Mix ingredients. Add hot water and mix. Add raisins and currants. Add cinnamon.

Mix butter and sugar
Mix in eggs
Add dry ingredients
Mix well
Add water
Add currents and raisins
Add cinnamon

Turn into greased 9 x 5 loaf pan or 9 inch round pan. Bake in slow oven at 350° for about 1 hour.

Pour into pan
Place into bake oven
Charlotte’s Dessert Bread

Serve when cooled with fresh butter.