Bread Baking – Multi-grain Squash Bread

I love to bake bread but I have not had good luck with it in recent years.  I think I finally realized that I am not a good baker with a bread machine – the technique just doesn’t seem to work for me.  The loaf of bread almost always collapses before the baking is finished.  Today I decided to go back to the old fashion method of baking and kneading bread – by hand.  After all if I have good luck with my quilting by hand why not try the by hand method for baking bread.  I also like baking with whole grains – the healthier the better and I always like changing recipes somewhat to include things that I like.  Here is a recipe I made up after looking at a recipe and decided it needed a lot of changes!

Multi-Grain Squash Bread

Ingredients:
1 cup mashed squash (I used acorn squash, leftover from when I baked it) ( canned sweet potato or canned pumpkin could be substituted but make sure to drain all liquid)
4 tablespoons Buttermilk powder ( I use buttermilk powder as I rarely have milk in the house)
1 cup of water
3 tablespoons butter, cut into several pieces
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup unbleached white spelt flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups to 2 cups white flour (use 1 1/2 cups first, add the remaining 1/2 cup if dough is too sticky)
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1 tablespoon yeast

Put all ingredients in a heavy duty mixing bowl, lock in place and mix slowly until moist, if you have a kitchen aide type of mixer like I do beat on medium for about 5 minutes or longer.  Tip out of bowl onto a floured surface and knead the dough for about 5 minutes longer – do not knead in too much flour – this dough was not sticky but nearly.  Grease a large bowl and put dough in the bowl letting the bottom get greased, turn over so the other side is greased also.

Let dough rise in a warm area (I let mine rise in the oven – do not turn heat on – what I do is boil some water on the stove top and pour water into a large shallow bowl and place on the bottom rack of the oven – this keeps the oven warm and the dough rises nicely).  Let the dough rise for about 1 hour or until double in bulk.  Punch the dough down and shape into a loaf – I just do a round circle and place on a cookie sheet – you could do regular loaves if you want.  Let the dough rise until nearly doubled and bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until nicely browned and sounds hollow when tapped on the underside.

My bread (with a couple slices taken off of one end  I forgot to take a photo immediately).