Butter and Rye Bread

The babes and I made butter yesterday.  It was a lot of fun.  We had gotten a "theme" box from the library, our theme being - The Farm- and we have been having so much fun with it.  It came with many supplies, but also an idea sheet for all the different subjects in school, like math, art, music, etc.  Of course my girls are pretty young, so we have kept it basic, doing a lot of counting, color sorting, singing (with an old Mac Donald puppet) and crafts.  One idea was to make butter.  The paper under the butter is one of the crafts we did.  They practiced their cutting and glueing skills by cutting out cow spots.  Besides the butter, I think my favorite craft so far was making a pink pig and then smearing brown finger paint "mud" all over him- the girls loved that!

Of course the bulk of the butter making shaking was left to me, but the girls had fun taking their turns at shaking up some butter.  We made some rye bread to smear our butter on.  Yum!!

Butter

Find a plastic jar with a screw top lid (I used a peanut butter container).  Wash a marble and put that in the jar.  Fill the jar about half way full of whipping cream.  (I threw a couple pinches of salt in since we usually buy salted butter)  Start shaking.  Keep shaking until the cream separates  into grains of butter and buttermilk.  Continue shaking until the butter solidifies.  Pour off the buttermilk.

German Dark Rye Bread (from the Hodgson Mill rye flour bag)

This bread was fine, but we thought it didnt have as much flavor as another rye bread I had made a couple weeks ago.  I had made that one in the bread machine since I felt a migraine coming on, so when I try it by hand I will post it.

3 1/2 cups rye flour

2 1/2 - 3 1/2 cups all purpose or bread flour

2 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten (I didnt use)

2 pkgs active dry yeast (1 pkg= 2 1/4 tsp)

2 cups warm water, 110*

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

3 Tbsp. cocoa powder

2 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter, melted

*Put the warm water in a large bowl and add the brown sugar and yeast.  Allow it to sit and proof 5-10 min. 

*Add the molasses, rye flour, vital wheat gluten and cocoa.  Mix well and allow to sit for 10 min. 

*Mix in the melted butter and salt, then 1 cup of the all purpose flour. 

*Knead in enough of the rest of the flour to make a soft dough.  Knead for about 8-10 min.  Place the dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat, cover and allow to rise about an hour, until doubled. 

*Divide your dough into two pieces, gently press out any air bubbles then shape into loaves and place in 2 greased loaf pans.  Allow to rise about an hour, until doubled.

*Bake at 400* 25-28 min.  Remove from pans immediately and cool on a wire rack.