Bread Baking for Busy Mothers
Making bread is time-consuming, but so rewarding! It’s actually my favorite homemaking task of them all.
But how do you fit in bread baking for busy mothers? Here are a few tips I’ve learned after baking all my family’s bread for years.
The results of baking day: 4 loaves of bread, 1 pan of rolls, two pans of cinnamon rolls, 1 batch of cinnamon scones and 2 batches of biscuits!After eating our own fresh whole grain breads for quite a few years now, it is so difficult to eat “store bread!” Depending on the season of life I’m in, sometimes it’s just so hard to get it done!
Bread Baking for Busy Mothers
I’ve been committed to making all our bread for years. During busy seasons (like times of illness or days with a newborn) it’s hard to make it happen.
1. I grind all the flour the day before. This way it’s all ready to go on baking day. (Go here to learn how to make flour with whole grains.)
Edited to add: I used to always grind the flour the day before because it broke up the steps of making homemade whole wheat bread with freshly ground flour.
These days, however, I try to grind the flour right before I use it. This is the grain mill I leave out on my counter to quickly grind a bit of flour for a recipe.
Whenever I’m making a huge batch of bread, like the one in the photo at the top of this post, I use this grain mill (which I’ve had for over 20 years), which is able to grind up to 24 cups of flour in under 8 minutes. It gets the job done very quickly.
2. Use the two-stage (soaked grains) method. If you do this, it is not only healthful, but it makes baking more manageable by breaking up the steps. I’ve made some of the breads from Nourishing Traditions, but they didn’t always turn out as I’d hoped (with the exception of the pancakes).
But I’ve found several other recipes that are working well for me. So far I’ve made biscuits, cinnamon scones, and pumpkin bread successfully with the two-stage process, and we’ve liked them all.
These days, I’m more likely to make a long-fermented sourdough bread like these overnight sourdough biscuits.
3. Pick one basic bread recipe to master and then stick with it. I used to try all kinds of bread recipes looking for just the right one! I finally found this bread recipe, and it has been the staple bread recipe I’ve been using for many years now.
It’s so versatile because you can make all kinds of other breads just from this one recipe. I use it to make loaves of bread, dinner rolls, bread sticks, and even cinnamon rolls!
