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If you want the butter you use to do all it can for you, add it cool, rather than melted. The French method is to smear the butter onto the board after the kneading is nearly done, working it into the dough until it disappears and the dough is smooth and lustrous. You can also cut (or grate) cold butter into tiny pieces and knead it in—again, after the gluten has had a chance to develop. In either case, the lubricating effect is unmistakable. It may seem like a time-saver to melt the butter, but though you get the flavor that way, you don’t get the extra rise.

As to the flavor of butter—well, what could be more delectable? And yet with whole grains, which have their own character and are not merely backdrop like white flour, butter’s taste plays a supporting role: very good indeed, but subtler than the flavor of the grain itself.

Note here that we use ordinary butter in our recipes; if you use sweet butter you may want to increase the salt by a pinch. Salt is added to butter as a preservative, and it does help prevent it from going rancid: sweet butter keeps much less well. Sweet or salted, don’t be tempted to use up rancid butter in your baking. Rancid fat is not only unhealthful but can spoil the bread.

Fresh Milk Bread

“Drink this now,” Jo Anne said, blue eyes ablaze, handing over the steaming mug. “Not since I was a girl in Scotland have I tasted this.”

I drank obediently. “Is it—milk?” I really wasn’t sure. It tasted like liquid flowers.

“Fresh from the cow. You never get this nowadays.” Jo-Anne had been visiting a neighbor who has a small dairy farm. His cows were giving more than he could process and we were the beneficiaries.

“Do you realize that the milk from our local dairies goes all the way to Sacramento for processing? Most of its goodness is gone by the time it comes all the way back in a paper carton. And before long, the way things are going, all you will see on the supermarket shelves is sterilized milk months old, from 6,000-cow milk factories a thousand miles away. If we had a cow …”

When Jo Anne takes a decision, nothing will stop her, and this morning from my window I can see a pretty little Jersey heifer across the way, graceful as a deer. Soon enough she will give us fresh milk every day too. Meantime, what a beautiful, gentle, sweet creature! She has charmed all of us—and those eyes! Her name is Shoba, which means the “bright one,” and her friend and custodian is Jo Anne’s daughter Julia.

Well, besides drinking it and making unimaginably good yogurt with it, what do you do when the spring makes the bucket overflow with liquid flowers? When our neighbors sent their extra milk our way, we put some in our bread, and it was sensational. The recipe works just fine with any fresh whole milk, even if it isn’t from your local cow.

Scald the milk and cool to lukewarm. To cool it quickly, put the pan of hot scalded milk in a dishpan of cold water, and stir the milk until it cools. Stir the honey into the milk.

2 cups fresh whole milk (475 ml)

¼ cup honey (60 ml)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast (¼ oz or 7 g)

½ cup warm water (120 ml)

6 cups stone-ground whole wheat flour (900 g)

2 ½ teaspoons salt (14 g)

½ cup more water (120 ml)

2 tablespoons cool butter (28 g)

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.

Measure the flour and salt into a large bowl and stir lightly. Make a well in the flour and pour the milk and the dissolved yeast into it. Stir from the center outward, until all the flour is mixed in, making a stiff dough. Knead vigorously for about 15 minutes without adding more flour. Use the extra water on your hands to keep the dough from sticking, working in as much as you need of the ½ cup (or even more) to make a soft, elastic dough. Now knead in the butter in bits, continuing to work the dough until it is silky.

Form the dough into a ball and place it smooth side up in the bowl. Cover and keep in a warm, draft-free place. After about an hour and a half, gently poke the center of the dough about ½ inch deep with your wet finger. If the