County Line Bread

On this past Sunday's VTE, Evergreen member Lanee W. shared her favorite bread recipe. You can bet that by the end of the Zoom call, everyone was drooling and couldn't wait to run out and buy a 5 pound bag of flour! Let's get cooking!

Ingredients

5 lb. bag of unbleached flour 

1 1/2 c. Sugar

5 tsp. Salt

2 c. warm water

2 1/2 tbsp. Active dry yeast (2 pkgs.)

1 tsp. Sugar

2 c. Shortening (or 2 sticks)

4 c. Cool water

Non-stick spray

Olive oil

Lanee’s Recipe 

Pour flour, sugar, and salt into a very big bowl. Yes, all 5 pounds of flour. You’ll need a very big bowl.

Mix with hands.

Combine 2 cups warm water (100-110 degrees F) with yeast and 1 tsp sugar; set aside for about 5 minutes.

While yeast is rising, add shortening to flour mixture and mix with your hands until it feels like cornmeal.

Make a well and pour in yeast water. 

Then add the 4 cups of cool water into flour mixture and mix only until it comes together.

Spray around the sides of the bowl with a non-stick spray. Also spray the top of the dough.

Cover and let rest about 6-8 hours. (In the winter you can mix it all up at about 10 at night and then go to the next step about 8am the next morning.)

Pour dough onto floured surface. 

Stretch it out into a long snake shape. Don't make it real skinny though. Separate into 5-8 equal pieces (quantity depending on the size of your bread baking pans).

Form each hunk o' dough into a loaf shape and place it into a greased loaf pan.

Brush the top of the dough lightly with olive oil. Let rise about 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

After about 1 1/2 hours, bake half the loaves (the ones that have risen the most.) This allows time for the other loaves to finish rising. If you have a double oven, (you lucky duck) you can bake them all at one time. 

Bake 40-45 minutes at 300 degrees F. Loaves should be a light golden brown on top, and it will smell like heaven in your house. In fact, if heaven doesn't smell like this freshly baked bread, I'm not going. 

When you remove the loaves from the oven, you'll feel a strong temptation to eat all of them at once. Like, not even making it to the breakfast table; but just standing there in the kitchen, whole loaf in one hand (potholder recommended), whole tub of butter on the counter, just goin' to town. No judgement here.

Warning: Many good men have fallen this way.

If any loaves survive

If you somehow express superhuman self-control and do not devour all the bread immediately, allow loaves to cool on racks or on the counter and wrap them in aluminum foil to store.

The moment we've all been waiting for...

After all that work and patiently waiting, it's time to enjoy the fruits of your labors. Check out these mouthwatering ideas of ways to enjoy this beautiful bread.

These are all calorie-free, by the way.

Oh, goodness, yes.

This bread makes a great gift! So if you're the Evergreen guest, you can bring it to your host as a thank you. I'm sure your host would invite you back!

Thank you, Lanee for sharing your delicious bread recipe. We love that you took such great photos to walk us through the process step-by-step. Everyone who reads this blog is sure to have their tummies growling!

"Give us this day our daily bread." Matt. 6:11

Join us this coming Sunday for another VTE at 7:00pm EDT via Zoom. Until then, happy baking!