My Mom's 5 Day Bread Dough...Updated Bosch Tutorial!

Homemade matters to us.  For my entire life, this recipe has been the standard of excellence in bread making. This is a bread dough recipe that my mother, Geneve, developed for her college Food Science final. I grew up with this bread and the smell of wheat grinding fresh in our family home.  I remember mom always testing the fresh milled flour to be sure the wheat had not gone rancid in storage.  Today...we milled wheat that I had put away when my first born son was born. Yup. 14 years ago.  I turned into my mom today. I got really giddy to find it was still perfect wheat, ready for bread.

  There was also only one bread mixer that she would ever openly praise.  It was our family Bosch mixer from the Bosch Kitchen Store.  It really was the only machine strong enough to handle this dough, because she made 5-6 loaves at a time. Repeat that several times a week. The machine lasted without a hick-up or need for a tune-up for most of my life. The last time I visited my mother, she was still using the same machine. She got the machine when I was about 2 years old...and I turn...(gulp) forty this year.  Yup. Bosch mixer are that good.

Gathering around Mom’s mixer and watching the dough form into supple perfection was the highlight of my week and the very testing-ground for what became a baking passion for me. We had to watch as it "spun gold out of wheat" and I was able to see first-hand what proper protein development should look like in the bread making process. Baking bread with mom made me what I am today. Some of life’s richest lessons were taught around that bread-board. 

 She'd always dissect the fresh loaves and make sure they were up to her standard.  I still do the same when I make mine. 

• Is the crust thin, crisp, and uniformly colored? 
• Is the crust tight to the loaf or did it separate?
• Is the loaf rounded, uniform in width size, and well domed? 
• Is the taste mild and sweet with the flavor of the wheat?
• Are there any strong flavors?
•  Is it overly yeasty, sour or salty?   
• Is the texture silky and tender?
•  Is the crumb fine? 
• Are there any flour lumps or knots in the dough?
• Are the air holes uniform?
• Can you cut reasonable slices without the bread falling apart?

Life has taken me far from my mother’s home. If I think about it too much, I get misty-eyed.  Now as a pastry chef and mother myself, her recipe for this remarkable bread remains a classic.  I was reminded of this once again this week as we gathered around our mixer. Mine is the newest model, thanks to my friends at Bosch. The recipe...is still mom's. 

It is called 5-day bread, but the dough can be made up to 7 days ahead of time. I still use it every single week! The dough is stored in a large bucket or covered bowl in the fridge.  Sometimes I divide it between 4 gallon sized zipper bags.  I love this dough made into rolls, pretzels, pizzas and yes, decorative ornate braided bread loaves.  You’ll find this to be excellent dough to keep on hand for all your bread making needs. Don’t be dismayed by the number of ingredients in this bread, each one works with the other to make it perfect.

Chef Tess' Mom's 5-Day Bread
2 T active-dry yeast OR 1T SAF Instant premium yeast
4 c milk, scalded and cooled OR water (no hotter than 115 degrees)
3/4 c honey
1T salt
4 large eggs
3/4 c oil (olive or melted coconut oil)
1 1/2 c mashed potatoes, cooled to body temperature
1T baking powder
14-15 cups fresh milled whole wheat bread flour ( tutorial on making-whole-grain-flour-at-home )

Directions: Dissolve yeast in milk (or water) in a Bosch Universal Mixer.  Yeast does matter. I use this one because I know it works.

Stir in honey. Allow yeast to get foamy. Add egg, oil, mashed potato, baking powder, salt and 14 cups of fresh milled flour. Turn to speed 1 and combine about 30 seconds.

 Increase speed to 3 and mix 4 ½ minutes until dough is soft and well developed but not dry.

 It will look almost like spun golden yarn. That's what good protein development should look like in your bowl. 

Allow dough to rest 10 minutes in the bowl (this gives the wheat time to absorb moisture). Don't skip this 10 minute resting step. You'll end up using way more flour than you need to in your bread and your bread will be dry.  After 10 minutes, you should be able to pull a piece out and have it string 6-7 inches above the bowl without the dough breaking. 

Add enough of the flour remaining to make soft dough that is easy to handle but not dry. More often than not, I don't have to add any more flour at all. Turn dough onto a  very lightly floured surface.  Form into a ball. It should hold it's shape without melting into a blob on your counter-top. 

 Place dough  in an ungreased 2-gallon bowl or food-grade bucket, covered tightly. If you don't have a large enough bowl...use two smaller bowls. Or...just half the recipe if you are worried about the dough growing all over your fridge outside of the container.

Put in the fridge, tightly covered.
 Punch down after 2 hours (this may be faster if you use warm ingredients or flour). If the dough is over 85 degrees when you put it in the fridge, be sure to punch down sooner. 
Form into a ball again. Cover tightly and chill at least 8 hours.  This chilling step is what will give you the best taste in your bread.  Long, slow, low fermentations of dough  are unparalleled for flavor development and gluten elasticity. This fermentation process cannot be produced by adding artificial flavors or mixing longer mechanically.  Some people try to mimic this process by adding extra chemical dough conditioners or added gluten powders.  They are not necessary if you do this step correctly.  They happen naturally by slowly raising in your fridge. This is the single most important step in making this bread remarkable and clean from added chemicals. 

Be sure to punch down daily if keeping it more than a day or two (this not only expels gas, but also ensures even temperature in the dough). This will yield 4 standard sized loaves of bread. Yes. You can also use it for anything remarkable at this point. I have such a hard time not making it into at least a dozen cinnamon rolls...or apple pie rolls...

To bake a standard sized loaf: Divide dough in 4 equal portions, about 2 lbs of dough for standard loaves. Form each loaf using the loaf molding technique ( Loaf Molding Tutorial).  Lightly coat the top of the loaf with melted butter and then lightly tent the loaves with plastic or plastic bags OR place in a moist place to rise. Allow to rise (1 -1 ½ hrs) until dough is about 1-2 inches above the edge of the pan. Lightly slit the top with a very sharp knife. 

Bake in preheated 425° oven for 20 minutes then drop the temperature to 350 for the final 15-20 minutes of cooking.

Remove from pans and allow cooling completely before cutting.
I cut this loaf right from the oven. 

Awww. See how it looks fuzzy instead of a clean texture?

Wait 30 minutes...and it slices a lot cleaner and nicer. 

So now I have my dough, ready for the week. It is just part of what I do to make things run smoothly here and save money.  Homemade matters to us. I know what is going into our sandwiches and lunch boxes.  We're using fresh milled grain that keeps the nutrition right in my kitchen instead of a factory somewhere. Plus, saving money and eating whole food is just how we roll.  

Yes. Mom was right. The best things in life cannot come from a store. They come from the heart. As I watched my kiddos rip into this gorgeous bread (while praising my name) I thought to myself, "This is it. This is why I do what I do."   Make a memory. Share some love.  Get the goodness into them!  And by all means, move onward and upward!

Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess

5 Day Sweet Roll Dough

Yesterday I shared some of the recipes and ideas from the homemade roll class, but this recipe deserves it's own post. Why? Because it's new to the blog...and it's one that has great application in so many rolls. I developed it as a roll dough that can be good in your fridge up to 7 days. It will make 5 dozen rolls so you can either make a dozen a day for 5 days, or just make a few dozen at once. I love the deep flavor and fluffy almost cake like texture of the rolls. I think you'll agree, this is a family favorite in the making! Please note that I use a lot of dry ingredients, thus the use of 6 cups of liquid. If you substitute prepared milk, you'll need to reduce the water amount. You'll also have to decrease the water if you use 4 real eggs instead of 1/2 cup dry egg powder. Bread flour, with it's higher protein content, will absorb more liquid than all purpose flour. 

 One of my favorite ways to make the sweet rolls is to just make sweet dinner rolls and lightly salt them with sea salt.

Here's the recipe.


Chef Tess 5 Day Sweet Roll Dough

2/3 cup Instant milk (or 4 cups prepared homemade soymilk  )

1 cup vanilla instant pudding mix (or homemade instant pudding mix) 

½ cup  whole egg powder

¾ cup  butter powder

¾ cup sugar

¾ cup olive oil

2T active dry yeast

1T baking powder

1T salt

6 cups lukewarm water (110 degrees or less)

12-14 cups  Bread Flour

Directions: Combine the milk powder, vanilla pudding mix, egg powder, butter powder, sugar and oil in a 3 gallon food grade bucket. Add the water one cup at a time with a whisk until all water is added and smooth mixture is made. Add the yeast and baking powder along with 4 cups of flour. Mix with a wooden spoon until smooth batter forms. Add the salt and 5-6 more cups flour, kneading well after each addition of flour. Mix 5 minutes. Allow dough to rest 10 minutes. Add 2-3 more cups flour depending on how moist the dough is. Knead 3 minutes more (total kneading time 5-6 minutes on medium speed with a dough hook or 600 turns by hand). Form into a nice ball and put in an ungreased food grade bucket in your fridge overnight (at least 8 hours). Punch down. This Dough is good up to 5 days in the fridge. Yields 6 dozen medium rolls. To bake, remove dough from fridge. Form into 2 oz rolls. Place 1 inch apart on greased pan and allow to raise 1 -1 ½ hour at room temperature.


The next few posts will be roll tutorials using this sweet roll dough! Won't that be the best?! Just in time for Thanksgiving!


There you go.


Always My Very Best,
Your Friend Chef Tess

Shrimp Pesto Pizza

Well, now we are down to some serious business. Shrimp pesto pizza. It has a cream cheese base, then pesto, then stuff piled on top. Need I say more?

Friday night is pizza night. Thanks to an outstanding recipe my mother developed, I usually have the dough on hand.(5 day bread dough ). I've talked about it before, but I really do enjoy knowing that I have dough for rolls, bread sticks, pretzels, cinnamon rolls, pizza...you get the idea. It's in the fridge. I know I am covered.

5 day bread dough ...become familiar with it. Make it Monday, still have dough on Friday. It's cool. I used the last 1/5th and rolled it out on a lightly floured counter top until it was round and about a half inch thick. Lightly coat the pizza stone with cornmeal. Then transfer the dough to the stone. That stoneware pizza pan started out light tan in color...so you know it's well seasoned and we use it all the time.

Oh yea, this is out of sequence, and totally random (you will start to notice a trend in my randomness). I'm not ditzy. Wait. Maybe I am a little. That is what makes me so insanely charming, right? Ask my husband Ace . When I was moving out to get married...wait. We are talking about pizza.

Here we go:

Cheese. Focus. I found a cheese that worked perfect for this pizza. Not only was it on sale, I also liked it. So that's a winning combination right?

It melted really cool and tasted so perfect. I don't work for Kraft either. Just liked the cheese.

So, in addition to the dough and cheese, you will need:

4 oz. softened cream cheese

1/2 cup prepared pesto sauce (of your choice...be creative!)

8 oz shrimp

1 lemon

2 large shallots, or 4 small, minced (you can use red onion instead)

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1 garlic clove, minced

1/4 cup melted butter

black pepper

kosher salt

I softened 4 oz. of cream cheese.  Then spread it really artistically across the dough. Every time I use cream cheese I think of that movie line "the whole family looks like they're carved out of cream cheese!" (Quick, name that movie).

Next, plop...yes. Plop the pesto. Take a moment to just feel the calming influence of the pesto. Ohm...slip off your shoes if you have to. Mossy. Really it helps. I put on my hip skirt and belly dancing garb. Not really.

Spread it out over the cream cheese. Frame this picture. It matches your living room rug. In the 1970's we had rug like this. All textured and cool pea green. We called it Dinosaur turd green. Do not associate that with this pizza though. Sorry again for being so random.

Jurassic park...Sorry. (giggle).

Okay then roll over the sides and pinch them down really good so they puff up like bread sticks...or is that one giant round bread stick? I'm confusing myself. I really need to stop that.

Grab your shrimp and put it in a bowl. Mine was already cooked. Ace has a hard enough time with shrimp without me putting grey matter on the crust (I did not mean brain...oh dear that would be gross). No raw shrimp. That would have been a deal breaker, as if my reference to dinosaurs (and brains) hasn't already ruined forever your chances of happiness.

Shallots. Look like little purple garlic. In the produce section. I know some of you have never cooked with them in your life. I buy them in bulk. Peel and mince.

Shred the cheese. Pile it up really fluffy.

Add the lemon juice, zest, shallot, garlic, salt and pepper to the shrimp. I go heavy on the pepper, easy on the salt. Especially since the cheese is already salty.

Now here's where I get wild and weird. (I am denying fully any earlier wild and weird things I have done.) Now. I mix the cheese with the shrimp mixture. I think it tastes better. I may be weird. Just maybe.

Then I spread it out on the pizza. Topped it with the chopped bell peppers. I don't know why I didn't add those to the mixture. Seems I like adding steps. Random.

Preheated oven to 425 degrees. Baked 35-40 minutes. While it was baking I got my bread stick stuff together.

To the melted butter I added the minced garlic and a healthy dose of fresh cracked black pepper.

When the pizza was done I glazed the crust with the butter garlic combination and garnished the top of the pizza with the chopped parsley.

If you want to make this a freezer meal, see the post .Freezer Meal Ideas Pizza .

There you go.

It Starts With a Dream

This is the recipe that started it all...

My Mother's 5 Day bread dough. It is good in the fridge for 5 days. She developed the recipe her Senior year of college as a food science final. Then the remainder of my growing up years, she developed it further until now... It is practically perfect in every way. A regular Mary Poppins kind of bread. Make the dough Monday and you can have rolls, pizza, bread... you name it for the rest of the week. The only rules are: the dough has to stay covered tightly, and the dough needs to get punched down once a day. This recipe makes 4 loaves, or 48 rolls. Or one pizza, 12 rolls, 6 hot dog buns, monkey bread, and 12 soft pretzels. It is an all purpose dough. Yes you can make 4 dozen cinnamon rolls and sit down with a fork and 12 friends and eat the whole pan... I haven't done it (...yet) but I assume it can be done. Diabetics... shoot up. I don't want to be held liable for a sugar coma. You know this isn't low carbo. Remember, follow the recipe as close as possible and you will have success. Pay especially close attention to the directions. Don't just read the ingredients and do it your way. It won't be as perfect as it could be...Really. Seriously. Do what it says. Really. I will say that and there will still be some who write and tell me my recipe is a stink-bug (even though they didn't measure right and added the salt right to the yeast and...their own way mixing...). There is no secret ingredient! Kung Fu Panda freaks. It is how you follow the directions... OH...and this recipe is for baking at sea level. If you are farther up in the clouds...be sure to note the changes.

Geneve's 5 Day Bread Dough--


2T active dry yeast (over 3000 feet use 1 T only)
4 cups milk, cold is best (cold soy milk is wonderful!)
3/4 cup honey
1T salt
4 eggs (or 1 cup egg replacement)
3/4 cup oil
1 1/2 cup mashed potatoes. cooled to body temp again. The consistency of thick oatmeal.
1T baking powder
2 cups whole wheat flour
12-14 cups all purpose flour (I have used fine ground white wheat and been fine doing all whole grain, use only 12-14 cups total if whole wheat is used )

Directions. Dissolve yeast in milk. Stir in honey. Allow yeast to get all foamy and look like it is having a hay day. Add egg, oil, mashed potato, baking powder, 2cups whole wheat flour, 2 cups all purpose flour and salt, in that order. Do not let yeast come in contact with salt on it's own or it will kill the yeast. Beat until smooth. Allow dough to rest 10-15 minutes.

Add enough of the flour remaining to make a soft dough that is easy to handle but not dry. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 10 full minutes. about 600 turns. Yea. 600 by hand. 5-6 minutes by machine on medium speed. Form into a ball and place in an ungreased 2gallon bowl, covered tightly. If you don't have a large enough bowl...use two smaller bowls. Or...just half the recipe if you are worried. Put in the fridge. Punch down after 2 hours (this may be faster if you use warm ingredients or flour. If the dough is over 85 degrees when you put it in the fridge, be sure to punch down sooner. Also...if you have kids who open the fridge a lot, be sure to lower the temperature a bit so that your fridge is really as cold as it should be) Form into a ball again. Cover tightly and chill at least 8 hours. Be sure to punch down daily (this not only expels gas, but also ensures even temperature in the dough). Shape into 4 loaves...see :loaf molding (I roll the dough out 12 inches by 8 inches, fold into thirds and roll into a loaf) and put into well oiled 8inch by 4 inch by 4 inch loaf pans. Larger loaf pans are not recommended. Cover loaves with a light mist of oil and then cover with plastic for 1 1/2 to 2 and 1/2 hours depending on the temperature of your home. Bread will be just over the top of the pan. Make sure oven is pre-heated! 400degrees. Bake at 400 degrees for (12-15 minutes for over 3000 feet altitude) 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake an additional 15- 20 minutes (I use a meat thermometer. At 170 degrees the bread is baked through). Remove promptly from pans and transfer to a cooling rack. Cool completely before putting in storage bags. Do not store in the fridge.