Bethlehem-The House of Bread

SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO KRISTEN 
​who used the bright yellow
 "Buy Me A Coffee" Button and purchased three coffees for me! Thanks you so much Kristen. Your encouragement to keep going is noted, and the hot latte will remind me of you and our times in the Church Coffee Shop and fighting through the snow to get to Bible studies. God Bless you! 

Greetings! It has been such a pleasure to get to know new listeners and get caught up with others. You are such an encouragement to me as I go through the Book of Ruth, and my prayer is that as you go through the study and listen to the Holy Spirit speak to you through the scripture that you grow deeper in love with Your Kinsman Redeemer.My plan was to add some Bonus material on bread baking alongside this study, so I thought I'd share my recent endeavors in this area. For my own health, it has been such a blessing for me to delve into the arena of Sourdough. However, I have let fear hold me back from baking sourdough. It all looked so complicated. There were so many recipes to choose from although the basic ingredients were flour, water, an starter. The first step into this world, was creating a sourdough starter. 
Sourdough Starter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup filtered water
Stir ingredients in a quart jar
Cover with a paper coffee filter and rubber band
Let sit for 24 hours
Repeat about three times and then Voila!
You will see little bubbles rising in your starter. But wait there is more. This starter is not strong enough to make any thing with yet. 
Second Stage Sourdough Starter
In a clean quart jar, mix until all wet
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup filtered water
Add 1 cup of the previous jars starter and discard the rest of original starter. 
Mix thoroughly, cover with filter and rubber band. 
Feed this new sarter for three days 
(1/2 cup flour& 1/2 cup filtered water) 
changing to a new jar each time. 

Now you have another baby to feed in the house each day, or place covered in the fridge until needed. The tough mental mind shift is over. You have made it past round one. 

​This is where I took a few weeks of feeding my new starter and strengthening it before I found a recipe I was willing to attempt. Mind you, I have baked lots of bread in my life and wasn't afraid of that, but it was stepping out into this new area. It's a good thing that Ruth didn't let her fear hold her back and left Moab to travel to Bethlehem with Naomi. I figured if Ruth can make that journey and follow Naomi, then I can follow a recipe!

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Thankfully I have many guinea pigs that are willing to eat my experiments. Unfortunately I am not very good at following recipes and it was still too warm in the South for me to turn on the oven to bake, so I adapted a bread machine recipe of a sourdough and yeast mix, and out came this beauty. The aroma was heavenly. You know Heaven will smell like Bread right? Well, perhaps not but it was a very Pleasant aroma. Perhaps it was Oud de Parfum Naomi, the pleasant one. If you are going through the study, you should get my drift, and if not, when you bake bread, it will fill your senses. 
Well, now the whole family and extended family was on board with me making Bread and my Christmas Gifts from them, shall we say, encouraged that pleasant  direction. 
This success gave me courage to attempt a complete sourdough recipe. So I searched high and low for a new recipe, and attempted sourdough rolls. The home smelled wonderful all day long as it rose, and they looked beautiful. However, it was a flop. The rolls were tough and not that tasty. We tried them sliced in half and toasted but still not worth the butter to eat them. They would have been great hockey pucks.
​I also tried to make sourdough crakers with a bit more of the discard, which were too thick, tough and chewy. But I will not give up! 

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Christmas also brought with it a two paddle Bread machine, which makes a loaf that looks like a store bought loaf. I searched the recipe book that came with the machine and found a recipe that I could adapt and add some sourdough starter and make a  loaf. Success! Great flavor and great texture in one. This recipe uses pineappple juice to sweeten the dough. It is a recipe for the bread machine, but you can always use the dough setting to prepare it, or make it in a bowl or misxer, and bake it in the oven. 
You can find the recipe at the Be Happy and do Good Blog. If you are in the North under all that snow, or even in the South with our cold mornings, the oven will work nicely if you don't have a bread machine. If you have extra, I'm sure a family member, or neighbor would love it if you shared. I'd love to hear about your bread making adventures. 
The Super Soft Bread Machine Hawaiian Bread Recipe

A few reminders:

• This coming weeks episode will continue in Chapter 1 of Ruth
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May your home be filled with pleasant aromas and your worship rise to heaven as a sweet smelling savor to God. 
Taste and see the Lord, is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.
Psalm 34:8