Making your own Herbal Bread

If you want to cut carbs, just not ALL of them you many want to turn to an herb bread.  The rich and varied textures of herbs can satisfy your palate resulting in feeling full sooner.  The best part is the ease at which you can incorporate herbs into bread.  So, scope out these recommendations for using herbs in bread.

You can slip herbs into any bread, roll or biscuit or cracker you make.  The only trick is to coordinate the herbal flavoring with whatever else you are serving with the bread.  Use the same herbs you would use to flavor the main course.  Biscuit made to go with a turkey dinner are delicious flavor with parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme.

Both fresh and dried herbs work well in baked goods.  How much to use depends on your personal takes, of course, but in general about 1 teaspoon of fresh strongly flavored herbs such as tarragon or dill will flavor one loaf of bread or a dozen biscuits.  Use larger quantities of milder-flavored herbs such as parley, chervil and lovage, beginning by adding 2 teaspoons the first time you make the breads and then adjust to your taste.  If you use dried herbs instead of fresh, cut these amounts in half or you may overpower the bread.

Remaking store-bought dough

If making bread simply doesn’t fit into your schedule, you can add herbs to store-bought dough for bread, rolls or pizza.  It takes only a moment to flatten out a thawed loaf of bread dough and sprinkle some fresh or dried herbs over it and roll it up into a loaf shape again.  For preformed rolls, make a depression with your thumb and sprinkle in the herbs.  Pizza dough gives you incredible scope, since you only need to press the herbs into the top, brush with olive oil then add you toppings.

Herb Bread from Scratch

Your herb garden can also add new dimension to any sweet breads or cakes you make.  Anise, lemon verbena, and lemon balm make the flavors more complex.  Angelica and sweet cicely allow you to cut 1/4 to 1/8 of the sweetener you usually use in the recipe.  Whatever you are baking, let your imagination roam through the herb garden to pick the perfect accompaniment.

Herb Bread Recipe

1 Tbls. yeast

½ cup warm water

2 Tbls. onion, chopped

1 ½ cups milk

4 Tbls. oil

1 Tbls honey

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

5 cups unbleached white flour

1 Tbsp. sage, chopped finely

3 Tbsp. parsley, chopped finely

2 tsp. thyme, chopped finely

1 tsp. rosemary, chopped finely

Directions add yeast to warm water.  Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes.  Sauté onions.  Separately bring 1 ½ cups of milk to the scalding point.  Pour milk into a bowl.  To Milk add yeast mixture, oil, honey, salt and eggs.  Stir in flour to form dough.  Before kneading, add sautéed onions and herbs.  Knead the dough until it is smooth.  Place it in an oiled bowl, and let rise.  Punch down the dough after 1 hour and form into two loaves.  Place in loaf pans.  Let rise for 45 minutes.  Bake the bread at 400 degrees for roughly 1 hours or until loaves sound hollow when tapped.

The Backyard Patch has two blends that are specially formulated for making an herb-flavored bread, but after years of experimentation we have discovered that several of our blends are good with bread, including: Herbal Spread, Butter N Cheese Blend, Garlic & Herb Combination, Marcy’s Dill Dip Mix, Fiesta Dip Mix, Chili Blend, Potato Topper.  To find all these blends check out our product pages on our Website or this listing in my Etsy Shoppe