Locavores: Baking local and a little roll recipe

While it's easy to think of eating local fruits and veggies it's another matter entirely to do your baking with local ingredients. Luckily we found a great grain supplier, HiStakes Spelt, right between Sugar City and Rexburg. They grow hard white wheat, hard red wheat, and spelt and sell it at the local markets. Their white wheat and spelt are my favorite.

 Sugar is a little more difficult to find, so I've been learning to bake with honey lately, and honey goes great with whole wheat breads anyway. My parents are good friends with the Hoopers at Hopper Honey Farm so we get our honey from them. You can even bring your own canning jars to fill up, which ends up being much more economical than the honey at the grocery store, and it tastes much better-- it's a lighter, milder tasting honey. Here's a couple tips to remember when baking with honey-

• When substituting honey in recipes calling for 1 cup or more of sugar, reduce the other liquids in the recipe by ¼ cup for every 1 cup of honey
• Add ½ teaspoon baking soda for every 1 cup of honey used
• To avoid overbrowning, reduce the oven temperature by 25ºF if it is a recipe not designed for honey as an ingredient 
• Because of its high fructose content, honey is sweeter than sugar. If a product is too sweet with a one-for-one substitution, reduce the amount of honey by using ½ to ¾ as much honey as white sugar in the recipe

And here is a lovely little roll recipe to finish this post off

Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

• 2 Tb. dry yeast
• 1/2 c. warm water
• 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 1/4 c. honey
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk or milk
• 4-1/2-5 cups whole wheat flour
• 1-1/2 tsp. salt

1. Dissolve the yeast in the 1/2 cup warm water in a glass measure. Set aside.
2. Cream the butter and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Add the eggs and mix, scraping the sides. Add the milk and yeast mixture.
3. Add 4-1/2 cups of flour and the salt, mixing until combined. It will seem very sticky. Change to dough hook and knead for 2-3 minutes only, just until no longer tacky, adding a tablespoon or two of flour, if needed.
4. Let sit in bowl, covered, to rise for one hour. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead a couple of times, then let rest 3 minutes.
5. Divide into 24 equal pieces, shaping each into a ball and placing in a buttered 13x9-inch baking dish with the pieces touching.
6. Let rise, covered for 1 hour.
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Makes 24