I know that I am not a person that could ever do an Atkins or South Beach type eating plan (read, that nasty four letter word, diet). I could never give up my carbs! I am a carb-loading fool. I love bread. Just watch me in action at O’Charleys or Fratesi’s when they bring out hot bread or rolls. Good grief, you’d think I hadn’t eaten in a year.
Anyway, I am rather particular about my breads. I am not fond of what Tim calls “loaf bread”, which is what I call regular sandwich bread. The psychologist inside of me says it comes from carrying a sandwich for lunch five days a week, 9 months a year, for 12 years of private school. Probably. I do, however, love homemade bread and rolls. Tim bought me a breadmachine back in 1999 and it’s still going strong. I recently moved it off of my counter (which was hard to do, I fought it for over a year) to make room for other things, and my poor bread machine was relegated to a cabinet in the garage. I have always made bread a lot more in the winter than the summer. A comfort thing. I just love making homemade bread with soups and chilis and stews in the winter. So, last week I pulled out my bread machine and made a new recipe for herb bread. It was deee-licious. Today, I just started some dough in the machine for yet another new recipe, a buttermilk honey wheat bread.
Now, herein lies the dilemma. I have new yeast, fairly new bread machine flour, but I didn’t buy wheat flour at the grocery yesterday. I have wheat flour at home, the little scrooge inside my head said. But, when I opened up the canister a minute ago to get out my wheat flour, it didn’t smell quite right. I went ahead and got the dough going anyway, and have a glimmer of hope that it will come out okay. The dough goes for 1 hour and 40 minutes in the machine, then I take it out, knead it a sec, and then let it rise. I’ve found a new trick recently for getting my bread to rise if the temperature and humidity in my house aren’t conducive for rising. I turn the oven to 250º, turn it off, then put my bread in my stoneware loaf pan in the oven for about 5 minutes. It really helps it rise. Anyhooo, I digress. I hope this bread comes out. I actually came back to the computer to look up on the Internet the burning question I have – can flour go bad? What does it smell like if it does? Does wheat go bad faster? Weighty questions, yes? 🙂
The good news is that Tim is not fussy at all, and bless his heart, I think if the bread doesn’t come out, he will probably be ok with eating loaf bread or crackers with his soup. He’s such a sweetie pie. 😆
Well, I think wheat flour can go bad faster than regular. At least that is what I think I remember from when I was making sour dough bread every week! I would put the wheat flour in a canister or container and put it in the freezer. Sometimes I still keep flour in the freezer in the sack.
Well, I have now learned my lesson. Wheat flour goes rancid. I had hoped that it would work out ok as this particular recipe used half white and half wheat, but alas, that was not to be. Luckily, Tim and I were both really happy to have crackers instead! I will definitely try this recipe again, it tasted semi-ok even with the bad flour, so I think it would be really good with “good” flour! 🙂
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