Beet Bread

Look what I did today! This feels so good to have a bread success, especially when you don't know really what you are doing! I had been looking for a recipe for years, for beet bread, which my Grandma Hopkins always made. Then last year my Aunt found it in the Ten Talents Cookbook, which is a Seventh Day Adventist cookbook. This is my first chance to make it. I remember helping Grandma grind the wheat and put the dough into all kinds of containers...baskets, tin cans and occasionally real bread pans! :o) She was always inventive about things like that, the ultimate frugal queen!

She made batches and batches of this and always gave it away. It had the loveliest raspberry colored dough and I always liked it, though many others were afraid to try it when they heard what was in it. Grandma was always making "experiments" and some family members and friends were quite cautious when she offered her goods! LOL

I ground the wheat in my Vita-Mix, so had fresh flour. It called for 5 cups wheat and 5 cups white. I used King Arthur unbleached bread flour and followed the recipe except for the 1/2 cup of soy flour, because we don't use soy. As I suspected Grandma didn't follow the recipe! :o)

You can't tell by the pictures but this is a king size loaf. My bread knife was in the dishwasher and the dishwasher was running so it didn't cut well, but I ate two slices with a little butter and a little wild, raw honey! Hmmm...DELICIOUS! It is tender and moist with a texture that a storebought bread eater would tolerate. That must be the white flour. I believe my Grandma used more beets because hers was really raspberry colored and used all whole wheat flour. Hers was a fairly dense bread. I would like to work on using less or no white flour but still need a texture that my picky family will tolerate. Would it work to use some oat flour or barley flour to replace some of the white?

This is a blurry picture, but I feel blessed to have Grandma's original cookbook and she does have notes. I misread her notes...that's why I have two king size loaves instead of 3 or more normal ones. Still, overall this was a bread success. My goal is find a bread my family will enjoy eating on a regular basis so that we can quite buying store bread!