Bakers Extraordinaire: Festival of Breads, Part II

Kansas Wheat photo

RaChelle Hudsmith didn't receive a bouquet of roses as winner of the National Festival of Breads' Home Baker division. She didn't need one: She'd created her own "roses" with her Chai Ube Rosette Rolls. 

RaChelle, a baker from North Logan, Utah, was one of eight finalists in the 2019 National Festival of Breads in Manhattan last Saturday, June 8. There were four finalists in the Home Baker division and four in the Food Blogger category.

Photo from the Festival of Breads website

When I talked to her during the baking competition, RaChelle said that the love of cooking and baking is in her blood. She grew up in the kitchen alongside her mom and grandmas, learning while standing beside them at the kitchen counter.

Besides being chosen as the home cook winner by three professionals, RaChelle also won the People's Choice Award as festival goers tasted her rolls and dropped money in a jar, all of which went to feed the hungry at Flint Hills Bread Basket.

 

Perhaps the popularity contest was due in part to one of the ingredients. Purple sweet potatoes - or ube - looked like a perfect choice for festival-goers who love all things purple in Wildcat Country. The dough is also flavored with chai, a seasoning blend that RaChelle's family loves.

While this was RaChelle's first trip to the breads festival as a finalist, she is no stranger to cooking and baking contests. 

"Cooking contests came into my life when I was going through some trials and struggles. The cooking contests brought some positivity and a new focus into my life. I think all of us have issues of one kind or another. We all need to change our focus from our hardships to other things that bring us happiness and confidence.”

--RaChelle Hubsmith, interview with The Cache Valley Daily

By day, RaChelle is a real estate appraiser for Cache County, Utah. But her side gig as a cooking competitor also brings in some cash. She has competed three times at the World Food Championships and has many other food competitions on her resume.

Being a cake decorator and having an artistic eye has come in handy when competing in food competitions, she says.  For example, she used a cake decorating method for shaping fondant to shape her rosettes.

She rolled out her dough with a rolling pin.

She then used a circular ring to cut perfect circles.

To make the roses, she stacked three circles and rolled them up in cinnamon roll fashion. Once rolled, she cut them in half and placed each part in a muffin tin for rising, then baking.

For a video demonstration on how RaChelle shapes the rolls, go to this link on Facebook or visit the National Festival of Breads Facebook page. I happened to be standing there as they were filming the segment, so I got the demo, too!

Once out of the oven, RaChelle brushed the tops with a butter and honey mixture.

RaChelle's rolls weren't the only breads that were easier to shape than the finished product appeared. According to Wheat Foods Council-funded research, there’s been a surge in demand for European-style artisan bread.

Chicagoan Kristin Hoffman’s entry — Tart Cherry, Pecan and Rosemary Boule — offers a great example of that style, said Cindy Falk, a nutrition educator at Kansas Wheat and chair of the National Festival of Breads baking contest.

“She bakes it in a Dutch oven and dusts it with rice flour, so when it comes out of the oven, it’s really crusty like a true artisan loaf,” Falk explained.

Kristin was the only baking competition novice among the eight finalists. The creator of the baking blog, Baker Bettie, Kristin was invited to attend a Kansas Wheat-sponsored bloggers event in June of last year. Even though Kristin grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas - which is home to some of Kansas' largest grain elevators - she had never been on a combine or in a wheat field until last summer. Her experience enticed her to enter the new food bloggers division of the National Festival of Breads.

While Kristin hasn't been part of the food competition circuit, she is no stranger to the kitchen. As a college student, she saw the Food Network show Good Eats, in which host Alton Brown explains the "why" behind baking and cooking. The science of the kitchen eventually led her attend a culinary institute and become a chef.

Her round bread loaf may look fancy, she says, but the ridged bowl does a lot of the shaping work. And, with a few strategic cuts in the risen dough, the visual effect becomes even more attractive.

"It's a lot easier than it looks," Kristin said as she made slashes in the bread. "I want to develop recipes that my readers can duplicate easily."

Finalist Brenda Watts, of Gaffney, S.C., also believes in dramatic shaping to increase visual appeal. She used a star-like pattern and Italian flavors in a large, centerpiece-worthy round bread, Sicilian Star Bread.

Brenda's husband, Mike, was watching the timer on the oven in her festival kitchen while she shaped another bread loaf and chatted with festival goers. He was definitely a one-man press corps, sharing that his wife has competed in the World Food Championships, three times in the Pillsbury Bake-Off and has won a Betty Crocker contest.

"Come stand over here, where I'm standing and smell that bread baking," Mike said. "There's no better smell in the world."

Another trend in this year's entries was the use of natural coloring agents like fruits and vegetables to create uniquely hued breads, Cindy Falk said. Besides RaChelle's use of the purple sweet potato, fellow Utah resident Shauna Havey, of Roy, Utah, used beets in her Beetroot Amaretto Rolls. Shauna, who also competed as a finalist in 2017, has a degree in nutrition, so incorporating healthful items into her baking is a priority. The bodybuilder likes the nutrition, the taste and the pop of color the beet puree provides. 

Shauna was a finalist in the food blogger division and shares recipes on her blog Have Yourself ... a Time. Shauna, like many of the other finalists, is a competitive cook. Just last month, she won second prize in a cornbread contest.  

"The competitions have taken me all over the country and have given me and my family an opportunity to experience different places," Shauna said, as her son, Luke, checked in with her while she was shaping rolls.  "I feel incredibly lucky to have a hobby that has provided opportunities for me to show my kids how other people live, what they eat,  their accents, and all the uniqueness and charm that can be found in each and every place you go. I also love being able to express myself through food." 

Kansas Wheat photo

Merry Graham of Newhall, Calif., who won the Food Blogger division (and whom I featured on Kim's County Line on Tuesday) added ribbons of color to her Danish wreath with fresh blackberries and blackberry jam.

RaChelle's sweet potatoes weren't the only potatoes featured either.  Lauren Katz of Ashburn, Va., paid homage to her family’s love of mashed potatoes by creating her own version of Loaded Baked Potato Bread.

 

Lauren actually offered me a sample still warm from the oven. It was so good! Lauren may look familiar if you're a cooking show fan: She won The Great American Baking Show Holiday edition in 2015. Lauren has won so many contests, they would be too numerous to list here.  Just a couple include the Sutter Home Winery Build a Better Burger contest, and being a two-time Pillsbury Bake-Off contestant. Lauren was the 2017 honoree in the Cooking Contest Central Hall of Fame.

 

Tiffany Aaron of Quitman, Ark., (below) stuffed her bread with apples and lots of spices.

I personally loved her Mulled Spice Apple Cider Crisp Loaves. Tiffany is no stranger to baking. She began selling homemade cinnamon rolls as a sixth grader growing up in rural Montana. With a grocery store and restaurants an hour away, she learned to feed a family by working at her mom's side in the kitchen.

For this year's recipe, Tiffany discovered a mulling spice mixture at a local market. She tweaked the spice ingredients until she could recreate the same warm flavors in a yeast bread. The recipe combines her long-time love of cinnamon rolls with another favorite sweet - apple crisp.

"It's a matter of trying ... then trying again," Tiffany told me. "You rarely get it perfect the first time, and that's part of the adventure - to keep at it until it suits you."

This was Tiffany's second trip to the National Festival of Breads. She was also a finalist in 2017. This year, she brought all five of her children and her husband with her to experience Kansas.

Suzy weighed the dough to make sure they were uniform in size before shaping them.

The tastes of childhood were also a theme for Suzy Neal, of Sautee Nacoochee, Ga., who earned another spot with her Peanut Butter Pretzel Rolls.

Suzy and her husband Clark own Unicoi Preserves, so coming up with a flavor to complement their fruit spreads was second nature to the cook and blogger.

The Neals live in the mountains of Georgia, about 90 minutes from Atlanta. Their location along the Unicoi Wine Trail makes their small batch preserves a natural pairing with yeasty breads, crackers and, yes, wine, she says. Their unique flavors - like salted caramel peach spread and apple cider pepper spread - caught the attention of a regional grocery store, Ingles Market. Both she and her husband blog for The Ingles Table and also share recipes on their Unicoi Preserves website.

Find the winning recipe for Chai Ube Rosette Rolls on the Festival of Breads website, along with recipes from the other finalists. I've shared links to all the recipes if you click on the recipe titles. Or just go directly to the National Festival of Breads website and click on recipes.

Connecting with Consumers: Carbetarians Unite!

Leaving the farm during wheat harvest isn't standard operating procedure. Well, unless it's a flying trip to the parts counter. (Is it a bad thing when they call you by name when you walk in the door of the Case dealership? Yes, yes, it is. But it happens when you visit the parts counter three times in 24 hours.)

Anyway, on June 17, I didn't make a parts run or a grocery store stop. I drove 2 3/4 hours (one way) to Manhattan for the National Festival of Breads.

I could say it was for these two cuties. But in reality, they live in Manhattan and were going with their mom and dad anyway.

 

Plus, they know a little bit about wheat after visiting Grandpa Randy's and Grandma Kim's farm during harvest and having specially-designed reading material about farm life from Grandma.

I try to do my part in connecting the farm with consumers through blogging, something I've done since beginning Kim's County Line in January 2010. But face-to-face interaction is better in the long run. So I spent some time on Saturday, June 17, in the children's activities area of the National Festival of Breads. (I actually worked with the two ladies below, and yes, I intentionally moved out of the photo when it was taken.)

Photos from Kansas Wheat

With all the gluten-free promotion and companies marketing "non-GMO" to consumers, it's important for those of us in production agriculture to tell our stories. Goodness knows, popular restaurants and so-called nutrition experts aren't shy about doing it.  (For the record, there is no GMO wheat commercially available at this time. And yes, those with celiac disease must avoid gluten. However, many of those who don't have celiac disease avoid gluten based on inaccurate information from non-medical professionals who make unsubstantiated claims.)

So I was glad to do my part to develop a new generation of "Carbetarians" at the National Festival of Breads by baking up silver-dollar-sized pancakes featuring three grains grown in Kansas - wheat, soy and corn.  The smell of freshly-baked pancakes had little consumers and their families lining up for a nibble.

The children also got to mix together the dry ingredients to take home to use to make their own pancakes.

Kinley and Brooke already help in the kitchen at home, but I hope it gave other children - and their families - a glimpse of using Kansas-produced commodities to make nutritious, cost-conscious meals at home.

Our daughter Jill also helped behind the scenes in the afternoon, setting up and cleaning up for the on-stage demonstrations.

She grew up on a farm and is a dietitian who went to school for five years to study nutrition and the role it plays in our lives. She promotes eating a balanced diet, all things in moderation, including carbohydrates and gluten.

Earlier in the week, Kinley and Brooke had experienced harvesting the wheat with Grandpa Randy.

The girls learned that Mommy had driven the truck during harvest during her high school years. But at the Festival of Breads, the girls - and other children - tried their hand at grinding wheat with a mortar and pestle. 

They tried a hand grinder ...

... and then an electric grinder, taking on milling in miniature and making whole wheat flour.

While our two granddaughters had just ridden a combine that week at our Central Kansas farm and have a tangential connection to Kansas agriculture, fewer and fewer consumers do these days. In 1870, 50 percent of the U.S. population was directly involved in agriculture. Today, farm families comprise less than 2 percent of the population.

So, in a nutshell, that's why I left the farm during the middle of wheat harvest. (I left the noon meal in the slow cooker and had the supper coolers packed and in the fridge, ready for the guys to grab at noon. Randy worked it out so they could be in the same general area and didn't need to move repeatedly during the day. And we all hoped and prayed for no breakdowns since the go-fer parts runner was hours from home. Thankfully, all that worked out.)

Timing for the festival is a legitimate question, and one that I heard on Sunday at church.

"Why would they schedule a Festival of Breads in Kansas during wheat harvest? Aren't people too busy? Doesn't it make it harder to involve farm families?"

Yes, summer is busy. Yes, it does make it harder to involve farm families. But, yes, it makes perfect sense. If I had any question, it was answered as I talked to some of the eight finalists.

Photo from the Kansas Wheat Facebook page

The day before the baking competition, the contestants traveled to a wheat farm near Brookville in Central Kansas. They took turns riding a John Deere combine as it "ate" its way across a golden field of ripened wheat. For most of them, it was their first time on a farm, their first ride on a combine and the first time they'd had a chance to talk directly to a farmer about producing the wheat that will eventually end up in the flour they'll put in their shopping carts and make into meals for their families and entries for the cooking contests they love.

Lunch for contestants and others in a farm shed on June 16, 2017 - From Kansas Wheat's Facebook page

After I completed my volunteer time in the children's area at the Festival, I talked to several of the finalists as they made their winning recipes three times during the day.

Cleveland, Ohio, baker Michele Kusma was ready for a job on a farm during wheat harvest. I told her it could be arranged.

She and the other finalists will go back to their homes in Maryland, Ohio, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Utah, Missouri and Minnesota with a story to tell.  The people in their communities may actually listen to them more readily. They can tell about their trip to a Kansas farm. They can share their memories of hospitality offered by Kansans and farm families. 

And that's why I left home during harvest to go, as did several of my fellow producers.

Here's the recipe for the pancakes we served. (I should have taken more photos, but I was too busy mixing ingredients and making pancakes)! For recipes from the finalists and more bread baking tips, visit the National Festival of Breads website.

Three-Grain Pancakes

From the National Festival of Breads

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups soy milk or regular milk
1 tbsp. corn oil
3 tbsp. honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Combine wet ingredients and mix well. Add wet ingredients to dry all at once. Whisk until blended and still a little lumpy.

Pour 1/8 cup batter onto a hot, lightly greased frying pan or griddle. Flip when pancake has bubbly surface and slightly dry edges.

When cooked through, remove pancakes. Serve with butter, maple syrup, jelly, etc., if desired.

Rising to the Occasion: National Festival of Breads

Ronna Farley and her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf.

Ronna Farley had a big smile on her face when I visited her kitchen at the Festival of Breads competition last Saturday. Her first attempt at baking her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf had come out of the pan cleanly. If you've ever made anything in a Bundt pan, you know there's no guarantee: Part could end up on the cooling rack while some is stuck in the pan.

But after carefully inching her way around each crook and crevice with an ice pick, the bubble loaf was out in one piece, looking evenly browned and with that unmistakable fragrance of freshly-baked yeast bread combined with an undertone of onion.

She had more reasons to smile that evening. Her Seeded Corn and Onion Bubble Loaf won the grand prize at the 5th biennial National Festival of Breads.

She and seven other finalists spent the time from 7 AM Saturday morning until 2:45 or so that afternoon making their recipes three different times. By 3, each had delivered her best effort to a judge's room for evaluation.

Farley traveled to Kansas from her home in Rockville, Maryland, where she works as a cashier in a grocery store. She gets inspiration for developing original recipes based on the ingredients she rings up for customers as they empty their carts onto the supermarket conveyor belt.

I especially love seeing what people from other countries are buying and the different ideas of ingredients I should try in recipes. Sometimes I'll even ask them, 'What are you doing with that?' or 'What is that?' because there are different things we sell that I don't even know what they are.

Ronna Farley as quoted in the Festival of Breads recipe book

As the 2017 National Festival of Breads champion, Farley received $2,000 cash, plus a trip to attend a baking class of her choice at the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. She will receive 120 envelopes of Red Star Yeast. 

This was Farley's second time as a top eight finalist in the Festival of Breads. Like several of the competitors, she is no stranger to cooking contests.  Patrice Hurd has been chosen as a finalist in a dozen national contests. Three times, she's been a contestant in the "grandmother" of them all - the Pillsbury Bakeoff. Once you've competed a trio of times, you're no longer eligible at Pillsbury. She's also been a finalist in the national beef cookoff, Build A Better Burger and Midwest Living events, among others.

Patrice Hurd and her Toasted Cardamom Nordic Crown.

But Patrice was glad to be back at the National Festival of Breads in Kansas. She was also a finalist in the 2015 contest. This time, her recipe was Toasted Cardamom Nordic Crown. 

"It's a fun hobby to compete in these contests," Patrice said. "You meet people who are just as crazed about doing this as I am. We get to know one another, and it's kind of like family when we get together."

There's a family feel to the National Festival of Breads competition itself, she said. 

"At the Pillsburg Bakeoff, there are 100 finalists, so you're basically a number," Patrice said Saturday as she worked on her bread recipe. "This contest (Festival of Breads) has so much heart and a real down-home feeling. I was thrilled to get back here. The organizers take care of every single detail. They do everything to make you feel welcome and make it an experience to remember." 

One of those experiences was her first-ever ride on a combine. Though it was on the schedule in 2015, a drizzly day kept the contestants from truly experiencing a Kansas wheat harvest. This year, Patrice and other contestants traveled on Friday to the Brookville farm of Joe and Geena Kejr where they took turns riding the John Deere combine. They also toured the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center in Manhattan and the Farmer Direct Foods Inc. flour mill in New Cambria. It gave them a glimpse at how wheat grown and harvested in Kansas ultimately becomes flour that can be used in their kitchens scattered across the U.S.

Michele Kusma with her Mexican Street Corn Skillet Bread.

Contestant Michele Kusma from Columbus, Ohio, loved the combine ride, too. This was the first time she was a National Festival of Breads finalist and her first visit to Kansas.

"It was just awesome," Michele bubbled. "It was interesting and beautiful to see the wheat being harvested." 

Michele, too, is a contest veteran. As she developed her recipe for Mexican Street Corn Skillet Bread, she was thinking about flavors that consumers tend to enjoy.

Though she's a contest pro now, she didn't grow up baking. Michele turned to creating recipes and baking as an outlet after her second bout with breast cancer.

"My mother didn't bake bread. My grandmother didn't bake bread. It was me and YouTube," Michele said with a laugh. "I love baking, and you might as well love what you do. None of us know how long we have on this earth, so we need to pursue the things that give us joy."

Jane Fry (on the right) and her kitchen assistant look over her Southwest Focaccia.

It definitely wasn't finalist Jane Fry's first time on a combine or in a Kansas wheat field. Jane didn't have to hop on an airplane to get to Manhattan. She was down the road in Elk Falls, Kansas.

Like many Kansas cooks, her love of baking dates back to her days in 4-H. This was her second time as one of the Top 8 in the National Festival of Breads. This time, her recipe was Southwest Focaccia.

Jane isn't just an expert in shaping bread. She and her husband, Steve, also shape stoneware, much with a wheat theme. Each piece is individually made on a potter’s wheel or by other hand methods, glazed, decorated and fired. The business has grown, but remains a small family enterprise to provide the kind of “home-grown” lifestyle. In 1987, Jane incorporated her love for quilts by developing a line of porcelain pins and earrings using traditional quilt patterns as well as original and custom designs, which are sold under the name Elk Falls Piecemakers.

Fellow contestant Kellie White grew up on a farm near Westmoreland, Kansas, though she now resides in Valley Park, Missouri. Her entry, Orange Spice Anadama Wreath with Walnuts and Dates, won the People's Choice award voting the day of the festival. Her Kansas fan club cheered loudly when those results were announced Saturday afternoon. Festival goers could vote for their favorites by depositing $1 in voting jars. Those efforts raised more than $600 for the Flint Hills Bread Basket, a local food pantry.

She credits her love of baking to her mom and also to a neighbor lady named Ethel who shared a day of baking with Kellie as a young girl and also gave their family gifts of homemade bread at Christmas.

One of Shauna Havey's Butternut Romesco Braid's was shaped and rising, while she had another dough rising.

On the other hand, contestant Shauna Havey didn't grow up baking. The Roy, Utah, finalist began experimenting in the kitchen after marrying her husband. The mother of two prefers savory recipes, so she developed Butternut Romesco Braid. 

Pam Correll shapes her Orange Marmalade Breakfast Crescents.

Pam Correll was hoping for a "sweet" victory with her Orange Marmalade Breakfast Crescents. The smells of orange zest and fresh orange juice permeated the work station for the Brockport, Pennsylvania, baker. The FACS teacher enjoys teaching her students to bake from scratch.

"It's becoming a lost art," Correll said. This was the Pennsylvania baker's second time to enter the Festival of Breads, and two of her recipes were awarded honorable mention in 2015. The 2017 contest was her first as one of the eight top finalists.

Turmeric-Rosemary and Sweet Potato Rosettes

Somehow I missed talking to Tiffany Aaron, whose recipe was Turmeric-Rosemary and Sweet Potato Rosettes. Aaron is from Quitman, Arkansas, but she grew up in Montana. In her interview included in the festival brochure, she says her father-in-law supplied all the sweet potatoes she used for her experimentation and recipe development. In 2015, she had won an honorable mention. This year, she only entered the one recipe, but it still got her included in the Top 8. The mother of five brought her middle daughter with her to Kansas to experience all the festival happenings.

The National Festival of Breads, the nation’s only amateur bread-baking competition, is sponsored by King Arthur Flour, Red Star Yeast and the Kansas Wheat Commission. Many more recipes from previous years' contests, as well as bread baking tips, are available at the National Festival of Breads website. Check it out.

***

I volunteered at the festival. Watch for my next blog post about why I took time during our own wheat harvest to travel to Manhattan and help out!
 

Focaccia

 

The weatherman says summer temperatures will return this weekend. Mother Nature did not clear that move with me. I've been celebrating the cooler fall temperatures by digging out soup recipes. I made Taco Soup this week. And last week, I shared Copycat Olive Garden Pasta e Fagioli soup with two families who'd just had new babies. Since it makes a big recipe, we enjoyed the leftovers, too.

To go along with the Italian theme, I made homemade focaccia bread to deliver with the soup. While I still turn on my oven plenty during the hot summer months, bread baking seems more suited to fall and winter temperatures.

Focaccia is a pretty forgiving bread, and it doesn't require expert bread shaping skills to get a good product. It's shaped into a rustic circle or rectangle, so it doesn't matter if the loaf isn't perfectly shaped. (Honestly, no one around here cares if the traditional loaf of bread is "county fair perfect" either. Homemade bread is homemade bread!)

Here at home, we dipped slices of the focaccia in seasoned olive oil, just like at an Italian restaurant. Homemade soup and bread? Yes, please!

While the summer temperatures are coming back for a short stay - ready or not - we know that fall and winter aren't far behind. If you're looking for tried-and-true bread recipes, the Kansas Wheat website has lots of recipes to try.

You, too, could be featured in that collection of award-winning recipes.  Entries for the 2017 National Festival of Breads are being accepted through January 16. The competition seeks the best yeast bread recipes from home bakers throughout the U.S. It’s sponsored by the Kansas Wheat Commission, along with King Arthur Flour and Red Star Yeast.

Adult amateur bakers can submit original recipes for holiday breads, rolls, time-saving and simple breads, and whole grain breads online. Youth bakers, ages 8-17, can also submit recipes for yeast breads and quick breads. All entries must be made online at  www.nationalfestivalofbreads.com and require photos of the entered bread.

Eight adult finalists will participate in the national competition on June 17 next year in Manhattan and receive a $500 cash award. The finalists will visit a Kansas farm during wheat harvest, tour a flour mill and grain elevator and learn about wheat research at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center. The Grand Prize Winner will receive $2,000 cash and a trip to attend a baking class of their choice at the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Norwich, Vermont. One youth grand prize winner will be selected and will receive a $300 scholarship. Two youth entries will receive a runner-up prize of a $100 scholarship.

The focaccia recipe I used predates the national contest. But it was a winner at the Kansas Festival of Breads in 2002. 

Whole White Wheat Italian Focaccia

A 2002 Kansas Festival of Breads winning recipe
made by Naomi Johnson, Great Bend

From the Kansas Wheat website

Ingredients

Sponge
2 cups whole wheat flour*
1 package RED STAR® Active Dry Yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning
2 cups lukewarm water (110-115°F)

Dough
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons dried grated  Parmesan Cheese
1 cup whole wheat flour*
1 ½ - 2 cups bread flour
 
Cornmeal

Toppings (optional): Olive oil, Parmesan or Romano Cheese, Kosher salt, Italian seasoning, fresh herbs

*Contestant used whole white wheat flour in recipe. 

Instructions

1. For sponge, combine in bowl, whole wheat flour, yeast, sugar, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and water. (NOTE:  I used 2 teaspoons of Italian seasoning, rather than 1 tablespoon.) Mix 2 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap; let rest 20 minutes.

2. Stir in salt, olive oil, and cheese. Add whole wheat flour; mix 2 minutes. Gradually add enough of the bread flour to form a soft dough. Knead dough 5 to 8 minutes. Place in lightly greased bowl. Cover; let rise until double.

3. Divide dough into two pieces. Gently pull or stretch each piece of dough into a circle or rectangle ¾-inch thick. Place on greased baking sheets or pizza pans that have been dusted with cornmeal. Cover, let rise 20 to 25 minutes.

4. Dimple dough with fingertips every ½ inch. Brush with oil; sprinkle on cheese and, if desired, Kosher salt. Let rest 5 minutes.

5. Bake in preheated 400°F oven 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden. During last several minutes of baking, sprinkle with Italian seasoning or fresh herbs. Best served fresh. (NOTE: I sprinkled with Zataar seasoning.)

Makes 2 focaccia (16 servings each).

Focaccia is also tasty with cavatini and a green salad.

***

Today, I'm linked to Weekend Potluck, hosted by these bloggers. Check out the tried-and-true recipes from them and other food enthusiasts!

• Served Up With Love ~ Melissa
• The Country Cook~ Brandie
• The Better Baker ~ Marsha
• Sweet Little Bluebird~ Mary
• Mommy’s Kitchen~ Tina

Hot Commodity

It's a brilliant marketing plan. Gather a bunch of your friends. Stir together some flour, yeast, water and salt (along with a few other key ingredients). Entice the public with the aroma of freshly baked bread. Slice it up and serve it along with a side dish of information about the wheat industry.

Nebraska Wheat set up their traveling trailer in the parking lot of the Wichita Airport Hilton during last Saturday's National Festival of Breads. They came at the invitation of Kansas Wheat, one of the sponsors of the breads festival.

During the day, they made 13 dozen chocolate chip cookies for festival goers. They followed that up with 125 cinnamon rolls. Before shutting the trailer window in the afternoon, they churned out 80 loaves of fresh bread.

Festival goers didn't mind leaving the air-conditioned comfort of the hotel ballroom to traipse out for a slice of homemade bread - even if it was 103 degrees in the shade.

It was hotter than that in the Nebraska Wheat trailer, but I hope it was worth it for the Nebraska wheat farmers who volunteered their time. They are nearing harvest, and I'm sure they have combines to get ready and trucks to roll out of storage sheds.

They set up shop for the entire run of the Nebraska State Fair and have also made appearances at the Iowa State Fair and a couple of county fairs each summer. They pulled the trailer to the Urban Wheat Field project in Washington, D.C., where wheat organizations from across the U.S. came together to educate people about all things wheat, including growing, milling, baking and nutrition.

Nebraska Wheat Executive Director Zoe Olson admits it's a lot of work for the staff and for the farmer volunteers. Everything is mixed from scratch. And, by golly, it's hot in a parking lot on a summer day - even without ovens turned to 350-degrees-plus all day long.


But what better way to talk to someone about the importance of agriculture and the nation's wheat crop than when they are chomping down on a slice of nice, warm bread. It's hard to argue that point when your mouth is full.

Now that's a hot commodity.