Does anyone freeze their homemade bread?

[Karin]

I've found it's not cost effective to bake bread in the summer when the A/C is running. Have any of you frozen your homemade 100 percent whole wheat bread? How long does it last? I know that if I were to buy storebought bread it wouldn't be very appetizing 4 or 5 months later. Also, any tips on getting it to last would be appreciated.:)

[PariSarah]

Well, I freeze it all the time, but we've never kept it more than a couple weeks. It has been perfectly fine after a couple weeks, FWIW.

I have to buy bread in the summer. Just no way 'round it.

[Ellie]

In fact, I slice mine, divide each loaf into to parts, *then* freeze it. With just the two of us here, we can't possibly finish a whole loaf of bread before it's all dried up. I make five loaves at a time, which makes 10 loaves for us, and it lasts a looong time. And it's good until the last loaf.

[Karin]

Thanks! I'll freeze what I can, although I suspect that before the end of the summer I, like PariSarah, will be buying it. But maybe by then we'll have a garden producing veggies to offset the cost (we'd like to, but will have to start from scratch with a raised one...)

[nuthouse]

I do rolls as oppose to a whole loaf. They bake faster. I also do tortilla and pitas more often than loaves of bread. From July to early October, I don't back alot of bread at all. I don't buy it either. We tend to eat seasonally and bread falls off the menu when it's to hot to bake.

[Karin]

This is a good idea, however my dh takes sandwiches for his lunch at work. Perhaps he'll go for sandwich rolls, though. I could bake them on cooler days.

[Jane in NC]

I've found it's not cost effective to bake bread in the summer when the A/C is running.

Granted, I don't use 100% whole wheat for this, but my solution to the summer heat/homemade bread issue is grilled bread. In fact, on our relatively warm evening tonight (fifties temperatures), we had grilled bread sandwiches with spiced turkey tenderloins, guacomole, and lettuce sandwiches.

For grilled bread, I essentially use the old Better Homes potato based refrigerator dough, except I substitute King Arthur's white wheat for some of the flour . (My recipe to follow.) Let the dough rise in the refrigerator over night. About an hour before you grill, I remove the dough from the fridge. After 20 minutes or so, I role eight disks. These will puff and cook fairly quickly at medium heat.

The recipe:

3 1/2 cups flour (again--I use half white wheat but it may be worth trying with whole!)

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup instant potato flakes or leftover mashed potato

2 Tbs. milk powder

1 Tbs. salt

1 egg (or 1 heaping Tbs. soy flour)

1 Tbs. yeast

2 Tbs. butter

enough water to make a soft dough.

I mix the dry ingredients in my food processor, cut in the butter, using the pulse mode. I then add the egg or mashed potato (if that is what I am using--otherwise potato flakes with the dry). Add enough water to make your dough.

I then place the dough in a plastic bag in the refrigerator where it will keep for about five days. After that it gets a bit sour.

This may not be what you where looking for, but it does provide an option for hot days. We have plenty of them in NC on which we use our gas grill.

Jane

[Karin]

This is very interesting. We just have a baby grill, but I'm going to keep this in mind!

[Jane in NC]

This is very interesting. We just have a baby grill, but I'm going to keep this in mind!

Pizza on the grill! I am less experienced with this but you can probably read about it on the net.

[Karin]

Wow--this is more ambitious than I'll be, I think, since dh is the only one who can eat pizza in our house. But rather cool. We have friends that grill all the time, and I can pass this on.

[AnneJ]

Aside from making buns instead of bread, you can bake late in the day or early evening. Then when you go to bed, cover it with a towel and put it in a bag the next morning.

[Karin]

Yes, this is good--I didn't think of that last year. We do keep the A/C on 24/7 due to allergies (it doesn't run round the clock, but can sometimes) but if I plan ahead and am very organized (always my plan to be more organized) I could do that.

[nuthouse]

things like meal salads. (Leftover grilled meat on a green salad). I don't know any guy that would turn down a "mini" sub sandwich. How about roll ups made with tortillas. Hearty bean and pasta salads can be made "manly" for lunch. Cheese, crackers, salami and a variety of olives and hot peppers are a favorite on very hot days. I hope this helps with the sandwich bread habit. I do understand not wanting to bake at all in the summer.

[Novafan]

I was just talking about bread making the other day. I've never done it and I want to start. Can you guys share your tried and true recipes?

[mellifera]

I imagine you could keep it frozen for quite some time, although ours isn't usually frozen for more than a couple of weeks. The main problem would be to avoid freezer burn. Bernard Clayton suggests using plastic freezer bags to keep the bread in. We just use aluminum foil, but as I said, the bread isn't in the freezer very long.

[brehon]

I bake all the bread for my family of 6 and freeze the loaves. I generally make at least a double batch of bread (so 4 loaves) each time I bake. My family like the multigrain bread better than the whole wheat, but I'll bake both depending on which ingredients I have on hand. I wrap my cooled bread in plastic wrap and then in foil and freeze it. Haven't had any problems; but, then again, the bread doesn't last months either. Good Luck!

[Karin]

He might, although he's Mr. Conservative when it comes to dress and food, mostly. I'm going to try these different suggestions, with the exception of the grilled pizza. It sounds cool, but he's the only one who can eat it. Well, we'll have to see about the grilled bread--I've never grilled food that I can remember. I may have when I lived at home or was going to university.