Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading Karen Morris’s book A Year Without a Grocery Store: A Step by Step Guide to Acquiring, Organizing, and Cooking Food Storage. It is a short book packed with a ton of information and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in taking charge of how they provide food for their family. After reading the introduction, I was ready to jump in headfirst because I loved the concept of not shopping at the grocery store. But, as I continued the book, I realized there were some basic skills I needed to master before giving up the grocery store for good. My first task – homemade bread.

Now, I’ve been baking homemade bread for a long time, but I’ve never done it as our family’s sole bread source. I know committing to this transition will be challenging so, I’m inviting you along for the accountability. For the month of September, I am committing to making all bread products for my family from scratch! Want to join me? (Or even just support me?) Keep reading!

Why would we want to give up the grocery store?

Ok, you are like woah, hold up! Why on earth would you want to live without the grocery store? This is 2023! I get it, girl, I really do. We live in the age of instant convenience. We can pull up to a drive-thru and feed our family within minutes with little to no effort. My family appreciates the occasional drive-thru meal from time to time, too. But, we have become lazy people.

By having all of our food “instant,” prepackaged, and “ready-to-bake” (don’t even get me started on the microwave), we’ve forgotten how much effort goes into making a nutritious and delicious meal. We are detached from where our food comes from and how it gets to our table. We unwrap meat packaged in foam and plastic, get our noodles from a box, and even our fruits and veggies come in plastic bags.

That being said, there’s still hope for our society. It’s not too late to learn and teach the next generation where their food comes from and about the importance of food security. It is extremely important to me that my kids understand where their food comes from and the work that goes into growing, harvesting, and processing real food.

This is why…

My kids know that the steaks and hamburger meat we enjoy each week come from a cow we watched graze in a friend’s field. They understand that we raise chickens for their eggs and will raise meat birds one day soon. All of them have dug potatoes and picked tomatoes out of our garden with me. They ride 30 minutes one way with me to pick up our local raw milk each week. They’ve watched me turn just a few ingredients into bread and experienced the magical moment when cream turns into butter.

There are so many more things I want to teach them about food, but I can’t do that if everything we eat comes ready to consume and wrapped in plastic. (We will explore the concept of sourcing your food from places other than the grocery store in the future. I look forward to sharing what I’m learning with you.)

Each week my children watch me bake bread for our home and for a local market. They love my bread and brag about it to people they meet. It warms my heart that they are catching on. They see that with just a little work, they can enjoy wonderful homemade foods that nourish both our bodies and our souls. Bread is a great place to start replacing commercially packaged foods in your home.

Is homemade bread really that simple?

Making homemade bread is as simple as combining water, yeast, and flour. I have an amazingly simple recipe for an artisan round loaf that I will share in a future post, but for today I want to share a delicious and versatile recipe for a sandwich-style homemade bread. This recipe is for 2 Pullman loaves. (Keep reading for more info on the Pullman loaf.) I use these pans.

We’ve made plain sandwich bread, chocolate bread, jalapeno loaves, cinnamon rolls, and much more with this simple recipe. It is worth mastering! The whole process does take a few hours because you have to let the dough rise, but the wait is well worth your time.

A Brief History of the Pullman Loaf Pan

Prior to the Industrial Revolution and urbanization, most breads were free-form, similar to the round sourdough loaves we are used to. With the movement of people to the cities and away from the countryside, bread was not long made in every home, but had to be purchased at a bakery or somewhere else outside the home. The French introduced loaves baked in square tins as early as the 17th century, but they really took off with the American Railways.

With the Industrial Revolution came the railways and the push for efficiency. One railway service pioneer applied this efficiency to the bread-making process. George Pullman brought sleeping cars, dining cars, and the parlor car to the American railway. With these new travel luxuries came food on the go. Pullman selected the style pan because it made the perfect piece of square bread, the bread was easy to store, and above all, it was efficient.

The Pullman pan paved the way for the industrialized bread now found in most grocery stores. Now, you can make this Pullman-style bread at home, without all the additives and preservatives.

Tips and Tricks for Easy Homemade Bread

Before we get to the recipe, let me share a few of the tips I’ve learned over the years of baking. First off, start your yeast in warm water (110 degrees F). Put your water in your mixing bowl and then sprinkle the yeast on top of the water. This activates the yeast and speeds up your bread-making process.

Next, add the flour and mix just enough to get most of the flour wet, and then let the water, yeast, and flour mixture sit for at least 10 minutes to let the flour hydrate. This trick was a game-changer for me! It sped up the process by at least an hour! That’s huge.

After you let the mixture sit, add your oil and knead. Don’t under or over-knead. Your dough is at the perfect texture when it’s smooth and elastic. (Refer to the video in the recipe card.)

Pullman Sandwich Bread

Prep time

1

hour 

30

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

Ingredients

• 2 c water

• 2/3 c sugar

• 4 1/2 tsp yeast (or 2 packets)

• 6 c flour

• 1/4 c oil or butter

• 1 tsp salt

Directions

• In a mixing bowl, combine water and sugar. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and allow it to sit for 5-10 minutes until the yeast is activated.
• Add flour and stir until mostly combined. Allow to sit for 10-15 minutes.
• Add oil and salt. Combine and knead for 7-10 minutes. (Use a stand mixer to combine and finish kneading by hand to smooth out the dough. See Notes.)
• Allow the dough to rise until doubled. (1-2 hours)
• Divide the dough in half and roll it out into a rectangle the width of the Pullman pan. Roll dough up similar to how you roll up cinnamon rolls. Pinch the seams to seal the loaf. (Watch Video)
• Preheat the oven to 350 F
• Allow loaves to rise until they are almost to the top of the pan. Put the covers on your loaf pans.
• Bake for 30-35 minutes with lids on and an additional 5 minutes without the lid if desired.
• Remove loaves from pans immediately to prevent sweating and brush with butter to soften the crust.
• Allow the loaves to cool completely before slicing. (If you can wait that long!)
• Store in a bread bag or storage container on the counter for up to 2 weeks or freeze for later.

Recipe Video

Notes

• I like to use the stand mixer to combine the ingredients and get the kneading started and then I finish kneading by hand. You can knead the whole thing by hand, but I like to get it started in my mixer to save my wrists.
• These loaves freeze very well!