 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Welcome to another episode of Long Live La Familia, the nutrition soap opera series that speaks not only to our hearts, but also to our appetites. I'm Carrie Bachman, and today we have a special treat in store for you. You'll remember from our series that we follow the Sierra family. And Lisa is one of the sisters in the family who loves to make homemade flour tortillas. Everybody loves her tortillas. Well, today we're gonna learn another bread recipe that all of us can make at home that's almost just as easy. Just think, I went to the store this morning and purchased this homemade style loaf of bread. It costs several dollars. By the end of the show today, you'll know how to make this type of bread from scratch at home. It'll be cheaper, tastier, and healthier for your family. Now, don't worry if you don't have a bread machine or special bread making pans. You don't even need to go to the store to buy a special bread mix like this one because we're gonna be making our own today. Now, if you don't have a chance to write down the recipes as you see them on the screen, just give us a call at our toll free number and we'll send one out to you. The other thing you can find out about there is our free nutrition classes. Now, let's join Joanna and Lupe as they show us how to go through the seven steps of the bread making process. You might think that it takes a lot of time to make bread and sure it does take time for the bread to rise and then bake in the oven, but there's time in between the bread making steps where you can write your bills, read to your kids, have some good quality time at home. So keeping that in mind, let's take a look now and learn how to make yeast bread. It takes a five pound bag of flour and this mix is really nice to have around because you can use it anytime. Anytime you're in the mood for baking, you got your mix ready. Now I'm gonna add some sugar to it and also I'm gonna add some powdered milk and this is another way of you using your powdered milk. And I'm gonna add the salt and also some yeast. And when you are buying the yeast, make sure that you check the expiration date in the back of the envelope. It's very important that you don't get outdated yeast. Well, I have the mix already and what I do, I'm just gonna put my hands in and just mix it real good. And this mix comes very handy when you have to go out, somebody invites you out to take a casserole or a cover dish and rolls always seem to make a very great hit. So you wanna mix it real great, just be sure you get all that yeast. Well, I think I got it already mixed. So there you can have it mixed and after that you can put it in plastic bags, a coffee can, canister. I've already mixed the yeast mix and I have it stored in the cabinet. This is very convenient because we can mix it up beforehand and it's ready to use when we're ready to make the bread. Now we are ready to prepare the dough. First thing we must do is wash our hands. We're going to be working with bread and it's very important that our hands be very clean. Let's get into all the fingers, all the nails and while we are working with the dough we're going to be using the table surface which also needs to be very clean and I have already cleaned it with a kitchen cleaner and washed it off with a wet washcloth. Now I have all my cooking utensils out, ready to work with. You wanna do that so you don't have to take the time to pull anything out of the cabinet or the doors. Now I have my eggs that I've set out for a few minutes so they're not so coat and we're ready to work with them. Now we wanna check to make sure that our eggs are good. I'll break one into a smaller bowl. That looks like a good egg, we'll work with this one. Second egg, break that egg. This also looks like a good egg, we'll work with this one also. Now I want to beat the eggs slightly. Now we're adding the eggs today because it helps the dough to rise and it also keeps our bread fresher for a longer period of time. If you don't have eggs in your refrigerator, you don't have to include eggs, you can add approximately about one quarter cup of water. Now we're ready for our warm water. We'll let the water run from the faucet until it feels warm to your finger, about the same temperature that you would warm a baby's bottle to. We need one cup of warm water to begin with, make sure it's a cup, slightly more, one cup. Now I will be using an extra half a cup of warm water today because when I prepared the mix, I did use half whole wheat flour in it. Remember to allow it to get warm to the touch. Now we wanna make sure that we have one half cup of water, slightly more than one half cup. Pour out a little bit here. Okay, we have a half cup. Now the reason we're using the extra half cup today is because we are not working with all white flour. Otherwise we wouldn't need this extra half cup of water. Another hint is to use pureed fruit of some kind or pumpkin to add that extra moisture and to add nutrients and flavor to your bread. If you add the fruit or the pumpkin, you should take away part of the water. Now we're ready for our vegetable oil. Now any type of liquid vegetable oil works well with this dough. We're gonna need a fourth of a cup, measure accurately, make sure this is a fourth of a cup. Now vegetable oil is not necessary for this recipe, but it will keep the bread fresher for a longer period of time. Now we're going to mix our liquids with the fork. You can use your whisk, but you don't want to use an electric mixer. Just blend them in together slightly. Now we're ready to add our dry ingredients, but we'll clear away some of this clutter. Now we're ready to add our yeast mix. We'll be using our measuring cup and a spoon. Spoon it gently into your measuring cup. Never pack the flour into the cup. You can see the brown specks in this mix because I did add the whole wheat flour. Adds fiber to it. Now as you work with this mix, you'll get a feel of it and you won't have to measure as accurately as I have today. You will probably not use exactly five cups either. It all varies according to many things, the size of your eggs, the humidity. Now we'll mix the dough with our spoon. As you can see, it still looks a little sticky and we will have to add some more mix. At this point, I will not use my hands because it is sticky. As we add a little bit more of the mix, begins to stiffen up, harder to mix with the spoon. And again, the yeast mix will vary. Just roll all the dough around in the bowl. You can see that it's not as sticky any longer. It's getting stiff. And I can begin to use my hands. Get another half cup of the mix, approximately, just add a little bit. And I'm going to start with using my hands with the dough. And remember, I have washed my hands, taken off my rings, so I can dig into the dough. And the more you work with dough, you'll get the feel of it. The dough feels a little bit sticky. I'll add some more mix. Don't worry about getting it on the table. Just mix it. You can clean up later. Still need a little bit more mix. At this stage, add just a little of the mix, because you don't want to get the dough too stiff. I think we can start kneading the dough on the tabletop. Now I've cleared off my tabletop. I've prepared my dough, and we are ready to start kneading on the table surface. Make sure that you sprinkle the table with some extra flour. White flour, whole wheat flour, would work just as well, but do not use any more of the yeast mix. Place our dough on the table surface. And I'm going to go ahead and prepare my bowl for the rising stage. This oil will keep the dough from sticking to the bowl. Now we just begin to knead. The kneading technique is fold and push. Turn, fold, push. Now we're ready to let our dough rise. And what I will be doing today is covering it with a clean plastic bag. And you want to cover it loosely because you need to let the dough rise in the bowl so you need the room for it to expand. And the plastic bag also keeps the moisture on the dough, allowing it to keep moist, not drying out. Now the rising time will take about an hour because we used the whole wheat flour in our yeast mix. If it was all white flour, it would be a shorter amount of time to rise. It would take shorter amount of time to rise. Now if you find that you're not ready to work with the dough in an hour's time, this dough can be refrigerated. And when you are ready to work with it, pull it out of the refrigerator. Let it sit at room temperature for the hour of rising time. And again, I'm going to put a little bit of flour on my hand and I'm going to punch down to get all the air bubbles. And I'm going to add a little bit of flour so that my bread won't stick too much. And what we want to do is, okay, get all the air bubbles. So we want to just roll this dough and get all the little bubbles out. The cinnamon rolls are very easy to make. And they're a lot of fun to make. Plus, they're not only easy to make, but you can really save a lot of money when you're buying your cinnamon rolls. I think I priced them half a dozen for $3.98. And when you make this, you'll make more than just half a dozen. We're just going to spread them with melted margarine. You want to spread it real even. And cinnamon rolls are one of my favorites, I think because they're not only tasty, but they just go with anything. You can take them to a cookout or you can take them out for a brunch. Or you can take them down to the office if you want to please your boss. And we're going to add brown sugar. You can also add the white sugar. Today I'm just using the brown sugar. And also you want to spread it kind of even. And we're going to use some cinnamon. And you just spread it over the brown sugar. I usually make these cinnamon rolls at home and I freeze them. When I'm in a mood of baking, I'll make a couple of batches of this and freeze them. Then when I have company or my grandkids coming to town, I just put them in the microwave and they're just as nice as they were when I first baked them. You could also add raisins and pecans to it, okay? So what I'm going to do, I'm just going to roll them. There it is. And you can use a piece of thread to cut them because that way they cut better. So I just got my thread and doubled it. And so you cut them. And you want to cut them also kind of even, okay? So that they'll cook the same. You see how easy it is to cut them? It's really a great trick. Whoever invented this, not using your knife, and you cut them and think I made that a little too big. You could also put, if you don't want cinnamon or you could add crushed pineapple and it makes really great ones too. Or apricot jam, a lot of variety that you could make this. This also makes a nice Christmas gift. You know, during Christmas, Easter, I think I can still sneak a little one there so I can use all the dough. I hate to throw things away. And there you are. It's ready to have, rise them again. I'm gonna put them in a warm place and let them rise to double, about 45 minutes. Here we have a variation of our cinnamon rolls. I call these herb pinwheels. Instead of the cinnamon and sugar, I've used the cilantro and parsley along with the butter. As you can see, these are the just formed rolls and these have risen. They've risen at different levels because I placed them in a pan that was too small. But of course this makes for a more interesting dinner roll. Now I'm going to add some chili powder to the top of the dinner rolls. Now the chili powder is made from your chili pods. Just sprinkle the top. And here again, you can just use different spices for these rolls. Now this is just regular chili powder. It comes directly from the chili pods. Many times when you buy chili powder at the grocery store, they'll be added spices to the chili powder. But I'm using the pure chili powder. I'm going to place the pinwheels in the oven, which I've preheated to 350. And I'm going to bake them for 20 minutes. Again, your oven might differ from mine. Yours might be hotter, yours might be cooler. Set the temperature according to your oven. Now remember, do not put too many pans in the oven to bake at the same time. You want the air to circulate, to get the pinwheels to bake evenly. Set the timer for 20 minutes. And these are so delicious, you can eat them right out of the oven. Isn't it amazing how easy it is to make yeast bread at home? And yet the process is so involved and takes a little bit of time. And that's what makes giving homemade bread such a wonderful gift. People know that it comes from the heart and from your home. Kids also really enjoy getting involved with breadmaking. Your youngest kids can actually mix up the dry yeast mix. And kids who are a little bit older can learn how to knead the bread. It's a very relaxing activity. Now again, if you didn't have a chance to get the recipes written down as you were watching, just give us a call toll-free and we'll send the recipes out to you for making loaf bread, as well as making dinner rolls like these. And also, believe it or not, you can make pinwheels like these, which are cinnamon glazed. You call our toll-free number and you'll also find out about our free nutrition classes. So until next episode, I hope you enjoy making yeast bread with your family and long live our families. The preceding was a production of New Mexico State University. The views and opinions in this program are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the NMSU Board of Regents.