NEW AND IMPROVED!

Stop what you are doing right now and listen up: I HAVE PERFECTED MY SEEDY BREAD RECIPE. I know you all thought it was perfect before, but you didn't know that it could be made perfecter. Now you know!

The secret is buttermilk! This is officially my new favourite bread. It is just as soft as bought bread and sooo much tastier. And cheaper! And better for you! Buttermilk, contrary to what I thought until yesterday, is not fatty milk. It's milk with good bacteria in it! It tastes kind of like plain yoghurt. Who'd-a-thunk-it. Anyways, it makes a pretty delish loaf of bread. Apparently you can also use it in salad dressings.

So now that you have stopped what you were doing before, it's time to get out your flour, because you are making this bread right now. You will thank me.

You need:

5-6c all purpose flour
2 c Red River or Sunny Boy or equivalent cereal*
3 c buttermilk
4.5 tsp yeast
1/4 c sugar or honey or some combo of the two
1 Tbs salt
2/3 c water

Ok so the night before, mix up the buttermilk and the cereal and stick it in the fridge with plastic wrap over it.

Next morning, or afternoon, or whenever you happen to remember about it, take it out and warm it up in the microwave so it's baby-bottle temperature. While you're at it, get your 2/3 c water at about that temperature, too. Mix the sugar/honey with the water and add the yeast to it.

Put the cereal mush in a large bowl, unless you used a really large bowl to start, and start adding your flour a cup at a time. When you've added 2 cups, add the sugar/yeast mix and continue to add your flour until you can't mix it any more and it's time to knead.

Knead in the rest of the flour until you have a really soft elastic dough. It shouldn't be sticky, but it shouldn't be dry either. Err on the side of less flour - I used 5 cups.

Let the dough rise, covered, for 2 hours in a warm-ish place. Then shape it into two loaves and stick those in two greased loaf pans to rise again for another hour. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400ºF.

Bake them for 30 minutes, or until the bottoms sound hollow when you tap them and the tops are brown. Resist slicing open right away - make sure you wait until they have cooled!

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* If you can't find these cereals, use a combo of whole flax seeds, wheat bran, and cracked wheat - that should do the trick. These cereals are both made up of a mix of flax, rye, and wheat so use your imaginations!