Yep, I do it all!

Today I made homemade bread, homemade butter and topped it with my homemade jam! Yep, that's right I do it all!!! Sometimes I really feel I deserve a pat on the back, so that's what I am doing right now!!! It's been a long day, sorry for the goofiness! Here are the bread and butter recipes:

Butter

Couldn't be easier and a fun project to do with your kids!

Ingredients:

Heavy cream

Kosher salt (regular salt works too)

Directions:

Put cream and butter in jar (I didn't even measure, maybe 1/2 cup cream and a tsp. salt?)

Shake it vigorously until butter forms. Drain off excess liquid. Spread immediately or chill in refrigerator.

Amish White Bread

LOVE this recipe. My bread NEVER turns out, but this recipe just works for me! It always rises beautifully and gets golden brown and DELICIOUS! I got it from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

2 cups warm water

2/3 cup white sugar

1 1/2 Tbs. yeast

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

5-6 cups flour

Directions:

In a LARGE bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water and stir in yeast. Allow to proof until yeast is foamy. Mix salt and oil into the yeast. Mix in flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on lightly floured surface until smooth. Place in a well oiled bowl, turn dough to coat (so won't dry out). Cover with damp cloth. Allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch dough down, knead a few minutes and divide in half. Shape into loaves, and place into two well oiled 9x5 inch loaf pans. Allow to rise 30 minutes or until dough has risen above bread pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

***One thing I do to help the rising process is that I turn my oven onto its lowest heat and set my bowls on or near the oven to rise. This is especially helpful when baking in the winter months.

Banana Bread

We always have bananas in our house and I for one am pretty picky about the ripeness of my bananas, unripe bananas leave a weird bitter feeling in your mouth and over ripe bananas are too mushy and become in my opinion plain nasty. Often we do not eat a full bunch before they get too mushy for me (I need to remember my kids don't eat and only buy enough for Dennis and myself, but still I keep hoping. . . Cadey does eat bananas and Ian and Viv will eat a bite or two, Will absolutely will not. So it is hard for me to know how many to buy). I feel bad throwing them out all the time so I try to use them for baking. One of the most obvious uses is to make banana bread. This is considered a quick bread, but for me it has taken awhile (and I even mess up still) to figure out the best cooking method. Banana bread is really dense and if you are shy the littlest bit on your cooking time many times you will cut in and the center will not be cooked. Don't be shy about leaving in your bread the correct amount of time. If it looks like the top is getting too done, cover with foil (dull side up) the last little bit of cooking. The recipe I use is from the 12th edition Better Homes and Gardens Cook book. I think most people have a recipe for banana bread so unless someone wants me to post mine, it's really just an idea for what to do with your over ripe bananas!!