14 Homesteading Ideas You Can Do WITHOUT Land

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

A lot of us dream of the full homestead: acres of pasture, a milk cow out back, a big garden, maybe some pigs and goats. But land is expensive, and for most people that dream is a few years down the road at best. If you're stuck with a regular backyard for now, it's easy to feel like you can't really get started.

Here's the thing though: you don't need a hundred acres to start homesteading. You just need to start. There are a ton of little skills you can learn and practice right now, right where you are, on a quarter acre or less. And the beauty of doing it now is that you've got the time and headspace to experiment and mess up and get good at these things before you're juggling the demands of a whole farm.

I came across this particular list of ideas on the YouTube channel Bri From Scratch, whose family traded city life for a 100-year-old farm. You can watch her video and read the list below.

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1. Grow a Countertop Herb Garden

You can do this one right on your kitchen counter. On a small scale, it's basically micro hydroponics, like a little basil plant growing in a bottle of water and fertilizer, or a dill plant tucked into an old wine bottle.

It's a great way to have fresh herbs through the winter, or year-round if you don't have space for an herb bed outside. Not enough sunlight? A tiny grow light runs less than $20 and does the trick.

2. Learn Wild Foraging

Head out into a national forest or just poke around your own property and start learning which plants are edible. It's a fantastic way to get more sustainable and understand the world around you.

Just be careful with mushrooms. Don't eat any unless you're with someone who really knows their stuff, because plenty are poisonous.

Some edibles will surprise you. Stinging nettle, for example, will get you good if you brush against it, but it's been eaten around the world for ages. It's nutritious, tasty, and doesn't sting at all once it's prepared the right way.

3. Plant a Dwarf Orchard

Fruit trees don't need as much room as you'd think. Standard trees might go 15 feet apart, but dwarf varieties can be planted a lot closer than that. Grab a piece of paper, a pencil, and a measuring tape and map out your space. You'll be surprised how many apple trees you can squeeze into a small yard. That's years of homegrown fruit from a footprint most people overlook.

4. Make Cheese, Yogurt, and Butter

You can make homemade cheese, yogurt, and even butter without owning a single animal. Butter's a little less cost-effective without your own milk cow, but you can absolutely work with store-bought milk (you just have to adjust a bit since it isn't raw) or buy from a local dairy farmer.

Honestly, this is one of those skills worth nailing down before you ever have a farm. When you're not also busy caring for animals, you've got more time to experiment and really hone the craft.

5. Plant a Small Garden

Don't let a small space stop you, because a little patch can be shockingly productive. To put a number on it: a bean patch of four 30-foot rows produced 200 pounds of beans in just two pickings. That kind of setup fits in most people's front or back yard. If that were the only thing you grew, you'd have plenty to be happy about.

6. Buy Half a Cow

You can buy a half or a quarter of a cow from a local farmer at a really good price, then learn to do the butchering and sausage-making yourself, ideally with a few friends pitching in. Not only do you save money, you end up with some of the best, healthiest meat around. It's also just a great excuse to get people together for a micro-homesteading day of your own.

7. Learn to Ferment

Fermenting is one of the best skills you can pick up in your kitchen. It boosts your family's health, it's a blast to do with friends and family, and it makes some seriously good food. Best of all, it contributes to long-term storage. You can use vegetables from a farmer, your own garden, or even the grocery store. And you don't have to go big. You can make sauerkraut by the pint jar just as easily as by the gallon. It works on pretty much any scale.

8. Grow a Small Herb Garden Outside

Beyond the countertop version, a small outdoor herb bed can supply your kitchen with incredible flavor from a tiny footprint. Fresh herbs make all the difference. They make your food really pop, and they're perfect for canning projects like dilly beans.

Here's the fun part: you can mix flowers right into the herb bed, and it turns out beautiful. Just about anyone has room somewhere on their property for a little herb garden.

9. Grow Mushrooms

Mushrooms take almost no space at all. A bag of oyster mushroom mycelium growing on grain and sawdust can just hang from a tree branch while it fruits. You could fit 20 bags in a small spot, and you can even do this indoors. It's a way to produce really high-quality food without waiting until you've got a bunch of land.

10. Gather Nutrients and Organic Matter

Great soil is the foundation of a productive small garden, and you can build it for free. Power companies trimming trees nearby will often dump wood chips for you. Spread them a foot deep over a future garden spot, and in four to five years you'll have incredible soil you can plant straight into.

Manure is another freebie, since a lot of horse owners are happy to hand it off. One word of caution: ask what was in the hay first, because you don't want manure from animals fed hay sprayed with a broadleaf herbicide ending up in your garden.

11. Start a Compost Pile

This one flows right out of the last. Instead of tossing old food, lawn clippings, and even wood chips, throw it all in a pile and mix it up. A simple starter pile with some manure, straw, grass clippings, and pulled weeds is all it takes to get going. Here's a guide to composting for beginners.

12. Grow Vertical

If you've got a garden, the trick to getting more out of it is to go up. The more vertical you grow, the more you'll harvest from a small space. Picture tomato plants trained eight feet tall. You'll get a lot of tomatoes that way. Even a single six-foot row will keep your counter stocked with tomatoes for whatever you're cooking.

13. Get Chickens (with a Twist)

Sure, get chickens is the obvious one, but here's the twist that can actually make you money on less than a quarter acre. Buy chicks or hatch them in an incubator, then raise them through the first six weeks or so, which is the hardest, most fragile stretch of their lives when they need the most care.

Once they're through it, list them on an online marketplace. People will happily snatch them up for $15, $20, or more because they don't want to deal with that delicate early stage. Sell a few and you've basically paid for your own flock.

14. Try a Sneak-Attack Garden

This is about tucking food into spaces you're not using for anything else. A great example is sweet potatoes, but not for the roots — for the greens. Plant a few slips wherever you've got a gap, even between two rocks, and you get an attractive vine that'll trail along the ground or climb if you train it. The greens are delicious sautéed and fine raw, and you can wander out and pick them right off the edges of your lawn.

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If there's one takeaway here, it's this: the single best thing you can do right now is learn. Once you finally get onto a place of your own, it can be genuinely overwhelming, so the more skills you've practiced and the better prepared you are before you make that move, the smoother it'll go. Start small, start now, and you'll be miles ahead when the land finally comes.

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You May Also Like:

• Composting 101: Read This Before You Start
• How to Homestead on Less Than an Acre
• 6 Features To Look For In Off-Grid Property
• 16 Common Edible Mushrooms You Can Forage
• Can You Homestead On Less Than An Acre of Land?

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How Does a Geiger Counter Work? A Prepper’s Guide to Radiation Detection

A lot of preppers own a Geiger counter and have no real idea how it actually works. That gap matters, because a tool you don’t understand is a tool you’ll misuse exactly when the stakes are highest. If you’re relying on a clicking box to tell you whether it’s safe to leave your shelter, you need to know what that click actually means, and just as importantly, what it doesn’t.

This guide breaks down the real physics behind radiation detection, in plain language, so you can read your device correctly and know its limits before you’re standing in a hot zone trying to figure it out.

The Basic Idea: Detecting What You Can’t See or Feel

Radiation doesn’t announce itself. You can’t see it, smell it, or feel it until damage has already been done, which is exactly why a detection instrument matters. A Geiger counter works by detecting ionization, a process where radiation knocks an electron loose from an atom, creating what’s called an ion pair: a free negative electron and a positively charged atom left behind.

Humans have no sense that registers this happening. A Geiger counter is built specifically to catch that invisible event and turn it into something you can see or hear.

Inside the Tube: How Ionization Actually Triggers a Reading

A Geiger counter has two core parts: a sealed, gas-filled tube and a display. Radiation entering the tube collides with the gas inside, knocking an electron loose and creating an ion pair. A thin wire running down the center of the tube is charged and attracts the freed electrons.

As those electrons rush toward the wire, they collide with more gas atoms along the way, creating additional ion pairs. That chain reaction produces a genuine, measurable pulse of current through the wire, which is what the device actually counts.

The Avalanche Effect: Why One Particle Makes a Loud Click

A single particle of radiation entering the tube can trigger thousands or millions of secondary ion pairs in a chain reaction called an avalanche, amplifying one tiny event into an easily detectable electrical pulse. This amplification is exactly why Geiger counters can run on simple, inexpensive electronics rather than needing sensitive, expensive amplification circuitry.

It’s also why the sound is so distinct. Each click represents one genuine radiation interaction that’s been massively amplified by the tube itself, not a weak signal boosted electronically after the fact.

What’s Actually Inside a Geiger-Müller Tube

The tube itself is a fairly simple piece of engineering. It’s filled with an inert gas, typically helium, neon, or argon, at low pressure, combined with a small amount of halogen or organic vapor that serves a specific purpose: quenching the avalanche quickly so the tube resets and is ready to detect the next particle almost immediately.

Without that quenching gas, a single ionization event could keep the tube conducting continuously, making it useless for counting individual particles. The quenching gas is what turns a single flash into a discrete, countable click.

Counts Per Minute vs. Dose Rate: A Critical Distinction

This is the single most important thing to understand about a basic Geiger counter, and it’s the detail most preppers overlook. A standard Geiger counter reports counts per minute, the number of ion pairs detected every 60 seconds, not a calibrated dose rate.

Other, more specialized instruments provide an actual exposure rate, expressed in milliroentgens per hour. Those instruments must be calibrated to a specific type and energy of radiation to be accurate, and a reading is only reliable for the exact radiation type it was calibrated against. A basic CPM reading gives you relative information, more clicks means more radiation, but it isn’t automatically a precise dose measurement unless your specific device converts and calibrates for that.

Why Background Radiation Always Clicks (And What’s Normal)

Turn on any Geiger counter, anywhere, and it will click periodically even with no radioactive source nearby. This comes from natural background radiation, from the sun, uranium in soil, radon gas, certain rock types like granite, and even food and other people. A typical background reading runs anywhere from about 5 to 60 counts per minute or more, depending on your elevation, location, and the specific detector.

Knowing your normal background level before an emergency matters enormously, since it gives you a genuine baseline to compare against later. A reading that would be alarming in one location might be completely normal in another, particularly at higher elevations or in areas with naturally radioactive granite bedrock.

What a Geiger Counter Can’t Tell You

A basic Geiger counter has real, important limitations. It indicates that an ion pair was created, but nothing about the type of radiation or its energy level. It cannot tell you whether you’re detecting alpha, beta, or gamma radiation, and it cannot identify the source.

This matters practically because different radiation types pose very different risks and require different protective responses. A device that just clicks faster or slower doesn’t hand you that information; understanding this limitation is part of using the tool responsibly rather than over-trusting a single number.

Alpha, Beta, and Gamma: Why Your Detector’s Window Matters

Alpha particles are large and weak, unable to penetrate much of anything, including most tube housings. A thin mica window on the end of the tube allows these weaker alpha particles to reach the gas inside and actually get detected, which is exactly why some devices have a distinct, fragile window you need to protect from punctures.

Beta particles penetrate further and can often be detected through a thinner metal wall without needing a special window. Gamma rays are the most penetrating of the three and pass through the tube’s outer wall easily, which is part of why gamma is what most basic Geiger counters are primarily built to catch.

Pancake Probes vs. Standard Tubes

A pancake-style Geiger-Müller tube uses the same basic mica-window principle as a standard end-window tube, but with a much larger, flatter detection surface. That larger surface area means faster, more thorough scanning when you’re checking a broad area, like sweeping a room, a piece of clothing, or food, for contamination.

The tradeoff is that the larger window is inherently more fragile, since atmospheric pressure limits how large a thin window can be built while still holding the low-pressure gas inside safely.

Why Geiger Counters Need Regular Calibration

Even a well-built detector drifts out of true accuracy over time, and a dead or miscalibrated Geiger counter is genuinely worse than having none at all, since it creates false confidence in a reading that isn’t reliable. Follow the manufacturer’s recommended calibration schedule, and test your unit against a known, mild reference source periodically if you have access to one.

Battery condition matters just as much as calibration. A weak battery can produce inaccurate readings well before the device fully shuts off, so testing battery function on the same schedule as the rest of your gear is worth building into your routine.

How This Applies to Real Prepper Scenarios

Understanding the CPM-versus-dose distinction changes how you should actually use the device during a real event. Turn it on periodically inside your shelter to track whether background levels are rising, which would suggest radiation is finding a way in. Use it to sweep for hot spots before assuming an area, water source, or piece of salvaged equipment is safe.

For a genuine large-scale event like a nuclear detonation or major reactor incident, the EPA’s RadNet system provides far more sophisticated, sensitive monitoring than any handheld device, and checking official sources when they’re available should always take priority over relying solely on a personal Geiger counter’s raw CPM reading.

Choosing a Geiger Counter With This Mechanism in Mind

• A pancake-style tube for faster area scanning if contamination sweeping is a priority for your use case.
• A device that displays both CPM and an estimated dose rate, giving you more usable information than raw counts alone.
• A model with a protected or covered mica window, since these are fragile and easily damaged if left exposed.
• A unit with accessible, standard batteries, so you’re not dependent on a rare or proprietary power source.
• Clear manufacturer documentation on calibration intervals and procedures.

Common Mistakes Preppers Make With Radiation Detectors

Buying a Geiger counter and never testing it before an actual emergency is the most common mistake, since you want to already know your device’s quirks, battery life, and normal background reading well before you’re relying on it under stress. Assuming every click means immediate danger is another, since background radiation clicking is completely normal and expected.

Treating a raw CPM number as a precise, universal danger threshold is a third common error. Context, your specific device, your location’s normal background, and what you’re actually measuring, all matter for interpreting a reading correctly.

Common Questions About Geiger Counters

Can a Geiger Counter Detect Radiation Through Walls?

Gamma radiation penetrates most building materials to some degree, so a Geiger counter can often pick up elevated gamma readings from outside a structure. Alpha and beta particles are far weaker and are blocked easily by walls, clothing, and even skin for alpha, which is exactly why external contamination checks need direct proximity rather than relying on readings taken from across a room.

How Often Should I Test My Geiger Counter?

Check battery function and confirm the device is registering a normal background reading at least monthly, and follow the manufacturer’s specific calibration recommendations, often annually, for more precise recalibration. A device that’s been sitting unused in storage for years deserves a full check before you trust it in a real emergency.

Why Does My Reading Change When I Move the Device Slightly?

Background radiation naturally fluctuates due to factors like soil moisture, precipitation, temperature, and even wind, so small variations from one moment or location to the next are completely normal rather than a sign of a malfunctioning device. Take multiple readings over a bit of time rather than trusting a single instantaneous number.

Is a Digital or Analog Geiger Counter Better?

Both use the same core Geiger-Müller tube technology underneath; the difference is purely in how the information is displayed. Analog dials give a more intuitive, at-a-glance sense of trend and rate of change, while digital displays offer more precise numeric readouts, and many modern units offer both in a single device.

A Brief History Worth Knowing

The Geiger counter isn’t new technology dressed up for the prepper market. The device was developed by German physicist Hans Geiger in the early 1900s, with his graduate student Walter Mueller perfecting the gas-sealed tube design in the late 1920s, giving the instrument its full Geiger-Mueller name. Nearly a century later, the core design remains fundamentally the same, a testament to how well the original engineering solved the problem.

Your Gear Is Only as Useful as the Skills Behind It

A Geiger counter can tell you when radiation levels are changing, but no piece of equipment can replace knowing what to do when modern systems stop working.

What happens if the power stays off, stores are empty, clean water becomes difficult to find, or you can no longer depend on the services you use every day?

The Lost Skills of Independence is about rebuilding the practical knowledge our grandparents took for granted: the skills that can help you produce, preserve, repair, improvise, and become far less dependent on fragile modern systems.

Inside, you’ll discover old-fashioned, practical methods for becoming more self-reliant and better prepared for situations where buying another gadget simply isn’t the answer.

If you’re already preparing for emergencies, don’t stop at stocking equipment. Build the skills to keep going when that equipment, and the systems around you, can no longer do the work for you.

Discover The Lost Skills of Independence and start rebuilding the practical skills that modern life has nearly forgotten!

Final Thoughts

A Geiger counter works by detecting ionization inside a gas-filled tube and amplifying that single event into a measurable, countable pulse. It’s a genuinely valuable tool, but only if you understand that it measures counts per minute, not automatically a precise dose, and that it can’t tell you what type of radiation you’re actually detecting. Know your device, know your normal background level, and you’ll be equipped to use this tool the way it’s actually meant to be used.

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You may also like:

What Should Be in a Nuclear Survival Kit

This is Where The Amish Live to Avoid Nuclear Danger (VIDEO)

An EMP Will Strike Right After This

Nuclear Explosion – What Actually Happens, From Detonation to Fallout

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How To Make Bread

How to make bread should be a priority today. I firmly believe that people need to learn some basic skills, such as making bread. This is the bare minimum we need to teach others to learn. Here’s the deal: If you can make bread, you can save money on groceries. Yes, I understand people have gluten issues. I feel terrible for them. You will have to use a GF bread recipe; I cannot recommend one right now. I tried it once, and it had an interesting texture.

If I didn’t make bread for Mark and me, our grocery bill would be so much higher. I’m so grateful my mother taught me how to make bread in our kitchen many years ago.

I remember watching her stir the yeast mixture and dough with a wooden spoon and rolling out the dough on a lightly floured surface. I still remember how excited I got when the loaves came out of the oven and were placed on the rack. I took it one step further and taught myself to make cinnamon rolls, as well as many other things.

I recently wrote a post outlining why families need to learn how to make homemade bread. I received so many positive comments that I thought it was time to update this 2019 post, allowing new readers to access the easy homemade bread recipes and start making their own delicious bread. Please don’t feel intimidated; it’s easier than you may think.

Easy To Make Dinner Rolls For Two

Why Learning to Make Bread Matters More Than Ever

Have you looked at the price of a loaf of bread lately? I remember when a simple sandwich loaf cost about a dollar, and now I find myself standing in the grocery aisle doing math in my head before I put one in my cart. The fancy artisan loaves are even worse. If your family goes through two or three loaves a week, those costs add up quickly, and many of us are feeling the pinch every single time we check out.

Grocery prices have climbed steadily over the last several years, and bread has been right there in the middle of it. The cost of wheat, fuel, packaging, transportation, and labor all get baked into that price tag. When any one of those goes up, we pay for it at the register. The hard truth is that we cannot control what happens with the economy, but we can control how prepared we are to feed our families when things get tight.

That is exactly why I believe every family should learn how to make bread at home. A bag of flour, a jar of yeast, some salt, and water will make loaf after loaf for a fraction of what you would pay at the store. When you bake your own bread, you are no longer at the mercy of store prices, empty shelves, or supply chain problems. You are holding a skill that no one can take away from you.

I also love that homemade bread is simply better for us. When you make it yourself, you know exactly what goes into it. There are no long lists of ingredients you cannot pronounce, no preservatives, and no added sugars you did not choose. You can make whole wheat, white, oatmeal, or honey bread, whatever your family enjoys most, and you can feel good serving it at your table.

Here is something I want you to think about. Learning to bake bread takes practice. Your first loaf may not rise quite right, or it may come out a little dense. That is perfectly okay. The time to learn is now, while you still have the freedom to make mistakes without worrying about wasting ingredients during a hard season. If you wait until prices climb even higher or until an emergency hits, you will be learning under pressure. Nobody wants that.

Bread making is one of those old fashioned skills our grandmothers knew by heart. They did not think of it as a hobby. It was simply how they fed their families. Somewhere along the way, many of us lost that knowledge because it became easier to grab a loaf from the store. Now is the perfect time to bring it back into our kitchens and pass it on to our children and grandchildren.

There is something so comforting about the smell of fresh bread filling your home. It says love, it says security, and it says we are going to be okay. Start with one simple recipe, bake it a few times until you feel confident, and then try another. Before long, you will wonder why you ever paid store prices at all.

The recipes below will get you started, so grab your flour and let’s get baking together.

If You Can Make Bread, You Can Survive

If you can make bread, you can survive almost any situation. Last week, I talked about filling your pantry slowly. The week before that, I talked about making bread. Today I am sharing some of my recipes for bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls, and more.

Remember, we need fresh ingredients to make bread successfully, including fresh yeast. Please remember, bread making takes practice and a good recipe, combined with fresh ingredients. You can make bread and the best rolls in the world if you follow these tips, I promise.

This means the yeast must be good. I only use this one: Saf Instant Yeast, 1 Pound Pouch. I keep the amount I use weekly in my refrigerator in an airtight container. The rest goes in my freezer. I store at least five packages in my freezer, unopened, at a time.

Some people like active dry yeast or rapid-rise yeast. This Saf Instant Yeast has always been reliable in my bread-making. I have friends who use Fleischmann’s Yeast and love it! I used that brand for years because my mother did. Then I taught classes at a Bosch Bread Machine store and they used SAF Instant Yeast, it works for me.

I Love Hard White Wheat for Bread

Call me nervous Nellie, but I can’t be without yeast to make my bread and various rolls. When I make my whole wheat bread, I only use hard white wheat, and I purchase it from Lehi Roller Mills. For years, I’ve ground my own wheat, and the hard white wheat seems to work the best.

I buy it at Costco when they have it in stock. I use this wheat gluten: Wheat Gluten, and this dough enhancer: Dough Enhancer.

When I make my whole wheat homemade bread recipe, I always use wheat gluten and a dough enhancer. If I don’t, the bread will be too heavy and dense for my taste. I prefer a light and fluffy whole-wheat loaf of bread. I use the same dough recipe for whole wheat rolls.

I Like to Make White Bread Too

When I make my white bread recipe, cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, French bread, hamburger rolls, and other breads, I use bread flour exclusively rather than all-purpose flour. I buy it in bulk from Costco in 25-50 pound bags and only buy what I’ll use in 9-12 months, so I know it will be fresh each time.

The flour will go rancid after that, and my bread will not rise as it should. I know I can hear some of you say, “I have had flour for years and I still use it.” I’ve made bread for years and have learned the flour will go rancid, trust me. I really want you to have a great experience when learning to make bread.

The bread won’t rise if the ingredients aren’t fresh. One thing about my recipes is that you don’t have to use dough enhancers, but I use them because they make my bread and rolls really soft and fluffy.

These are the one-pound loaf pans I use for my bread making: Fat Daddio’s Anodized Aluminum Bread Pan, 7.75 Inch x 3.75 Inch x 2.50 Inch.

Make Bread, It’s Easy

Once you learn to make bread, you’ll realize you can make bread and love doing so. It’s easy, I promise!

No-Fail Whole Wheat Bread Recipe:

Print

No-Fail Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

Course Bread, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 1 hour hour 30 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 2 hours hours

Servings 8 one pound loaves

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 6 Cups Warm Water
• 2/3 Cup Olive Oil
• 1 Cup Honey
• 2 Tablespoons Dough Enhancer
• 2 Tablespoons Wheat Gluten
• 2 Tablespoons Salt
• 2 Tablespoons Saf Instant Yeast
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 14 Cups Whole Wheat Flour

Instructions

• Start adding the ingredients in the order shown above with one exception into your mixing bowl…start with 7 cups of flour and slowly add more flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. I use a Bosch Mixer.
• I grew up making bread without a mixer, it can be done by hand. I grew up letting my bread rise twice so I still do that. Old habits are hard to break!
• I mix it for 10 minutes in my Bosch. Cover with greased plastic wrap until it doubles in size.
• Punch down and form dough into eight one-pound loaves or less if your bread pans are larger. I let the dough rise one more time with greased plastic wrap.
• Bake the bread at (350°F) = 176°C) degrees for 27-30 minutes. If your pans are larger you will bake your bread longer. You will love making whole-wheat bread, I promise!!

French Bread In One Hour

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How To Make French Bread In One Hour

Course Bread

Cuisine French

Prep Time 35 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour

Servings 2 loaves

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 cups hot water
• 4 teaspoons SAF instant yeast
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon Real Salt
• 6 cups white BREAD flour or freshly ground hard white wheat
• egg whites (lather loaves with a brush after first bread rise/cut 4-5 shallow cuts on top of loaves)
• sesame seeds or poppy seeds (optional sprinkle on egg whites before the 2nd bread rise time)

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to (400°F) = (204°C) degrees.
• Mix everything in the order shown except the egg whites and optional seeds. Knead for about five minutes in a bread mixer.
• Let rest for 15 minutes covered.
• Shape the dough into 2 loaves and place on a greased cookie sheet.
• Lather the tops of the loaves with the egg whites, and cut four to five shallow slices/slits on top of the loaves. Next, sprinkle seeds if desired.
• Let rise one more time for about 15 minutes covered with greased plastic wrap.
• Remove the plastic wrap. Preheat the oven to (400°F) = (204°C) degrees and bake for 25 minutes.

No Fail-Cinnamon Rolls

Print

Cinnamon Rolls-No Fail Recipe

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 1 hour hour

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 20 minutes minutes

Servings 12 people

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 4 Teaspoons SAF Instant Yeast
• 1/2  Cup Water
• 2 Cups Warm Milk
• 1/4  Cup Olive Oil
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1-1/2 Teaspoons Sea Salt
• 4 Teaspoons Dough Enhancer
• 2 Eggs
• 6-7 Cups White Bread Flour
• 1/2 Cup Softened Butter (1/4 cup for each rectangle of dough)
• Cinnamon-cover the dough with the desired amount of cinnamon. I use a lot of cinnamon!
• 1 Cup Brown sugar (1/2 cup for each rectangle of dough)

Instructions

• First, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the yeast, warm milk, olive oil, sugar, sea salt, dough enhancer, butter, and eggs.
• Next, add half the flour. Then, keep adding the flour gradually until the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl.
• Cover your mixing bowl with plastic wrap and place the bowl with the dough on the countertop. You want to let it rise for about an hour.
• After an hour, remove the dough from the bowl. Punch the dough down and roll it into two 12” by 18” rectangles.
• Lather each 12" by 18" rectangle dough with softened butter. Each rectangle will need about 1/4 cup. Add your desired amount of cinnamon on top of the dough. Then, sprinkle 1/4 cup brown sugar on EACH 12" by 18" rectangle of dough.
• Roll the dough tightly into a tube. Then, cut it into 1-1/2-inch rolls. Tuck the "tail" under the cinnamon roll. Place the rolls on a greased cookie sheet and cover them with greased plastic wrap and let them rise one more time for about an hour or until the dough doubles in size.
• Finally, preheat your oven to (350°F) = (176°C). Then, bake your cinnamon rolls on a greased cookie sheet for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

Make The Frosting

• Frost your cinnamon rolls while they are still warm so that the frosting melts on top of them.

Notes

Don’t overheat the milk. Warm your milk to about (110°F) = (43°C)

Anything over that will kill the yeast, and anything lower can increase the time it takes the dough to rise. Dip your finger in the milk, it should be warm, but not hot. 

1. 1. Use soft butter. The secret to super tender cinnamon rolls is the butter! You want very soft butter, but not melted butter. Take it out and set it on the counter a few hours before you start the recipe. 
   2. Do Not scoop the flour with the measuring cup! Flour packs tightly so if you use your measuring cup to scoop it, you will use too much flour and your rolls will be dry. Instead, use a spoon to scoop the flour into the measuring cup, and then scrape the excess off with a butter knife. 
   3. Use room temperature butter for the rectangles. When lathering with butter before adding the cinnamon, it’s best to use room temperature butter rather than melted butter. This prevents the cinnamon and brown sugar from seeping out of the sides. Use the back of a spoon to gently spread the soft butter on the dough.
   4. Don’t overbake the rolls. Your cinnamon rolls should be a golden brown. If you overbake them, they will not be as soft and moist as you would like them. Check them after 15-minutes of baking.

Cream Cheese Frosting

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Cream Cheese Frosting

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 1 cake/36 cupcakes/24 cinnamon rolls

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter softened
• 1- eight-ounce cream cheese softened
• 3 to 3-1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons vanilla

Instructions

• Cream the butter with the cream cheese and slowly add the powdered sugar to the thickness you desire. Add the vanilla until blended.

White Bread For Two-No-Fail

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No-Fail White Bread: 2 Loaves (Must Use Fresh Ingredients)

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 27 minutes minutes

Rising Time 1 hour hour

Total Time 1 hour hour 42 minutes minutes

Servings 2 one-pound loaves

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm milk
• 2 tsp.  SAF instant yeast
• 2 tsp. dough enhancer (optional)
• 1 egg
• 1/8 cup oil-I use olive oil
• 3/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 3 to 3-1/2 cups white bread flour

Instructions

• I start with a Bosch bread mixer, although you could make this in a bowl. I put the yeast, warm water, salt, oil, and sugar in the bowl.
• I then add the eggs and lightly mix them in the Bosch so the egg does not “cook”.
• Then I slowly add the warm milk and flour. I continue to add flour until the bread dough pulls away from the sides of the Bosch bowl.
• Then knead the dough for about 7-8 minutes. I place the dough in a greased bowl and cover it with plastic wrap.
• Let the dough rise until it's doubled in size. Then punch down the dough, make it into loaves, and place these in greased pans (this recipe makes two 1-pound loaves).
• I let it rise once again (using the same plastic wrap) until doubled in size.
• Remove the plastic wrap and bake them at 350°F (176°C) for 27-30 minutes. I lightly butter the tops of each loaf after baking and remove them from the pans.

Notes

HOW TO MAKE SCONES aka Fry Bread

1. I start with a very large skillet and heat the oil one to two inches deep until I can spritz a few drops of water into the oil ever so carefully; then I know it’s hot enough.

  2. You will start with one ball of dough about the size of a tennis ball, maybe a little smaller, but bigger than a golf ball.

  3. Then mash the dough with the palm of your hand on a greased countertop and use a rolling pin to roll the dough from the center out. You keep rolling from the center out until they are very thin.

   4. Then place them in the hot oil really carefully because the oil will splatter. Here’s the deal: yes, it’s a big mess, but I’m talking about memories right now.

   5. Adults and kids always love hot scones. Fry them until golden brown, then turn them over and cook the other side until golden brown too.

Whole Wheat Bread For Two-No-Fail

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Whole Wheat Bread For Two

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Let It Rise 2 hours hours

Total Time 2 hours hours 45 minutes minutes

Servings 2 one-pound loaves

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup or so of honey
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon SAF instant yeast
• 1/2 tablespoon dough enhancer
• 1/2 tablespoon wheat gluten
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 3-1/2 to 4 cups whole wheat flour

Instructions

• Start adding the ingredients in the order shown above with one exception into your mixing bowl…start with 2 cups of flour and slowly add more flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. I use a Bosch Mixer.
• I grew up making bread without a mixer. It can be done by hand. I grew up letting my bread rise twice so I still do that. Old habits are hard to break!
• I mix it for 10 minutes in my Bosch. Cover with greased plastic wrap until it doubles in size.
• Punch down and form dough into two one-pound loaves. I let the dough rise one more time with greased plastic wrap.
• Remove the plastic wrap Bake the bread at 350°F (177°C) for 27-30 minutes. If your pans are larger you will bake your bread longer. You will love making whole-wheat bread, I promise!!

Dinner Rolls

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Dinner Rolls-No-Fail

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Prep Time 2 hours hours

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 2 hours hours 15 minutes minutes

Servings 12 people

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 4 Teaspoons SAF Instant Yeast
• 1/2  cup Water
• 2 Cups Warm Milk
• 1/4  Cup Olive Oil
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1-1/2 Teaspoons Sea Salt
• 4 Teaspoons Dough Enhancer
• 2 Eggs
• 6-7 Cups White bread flour Add 1/2 of the flour and then add more until the dough pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl

Instructions

• Place all of the ingredients in order into your mixing bowl. Be careful with the eggs not to add the warm milk too slowly or you will have scrambled eggs.
• Add half of the flour and keep adding the rest of the flour until the bread dough pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl.
• Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise the first time for about an hour.
• Punch the dough down and mold it into small balls about 1-1/2 inches to 2 inches in diameter.
• Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise one more time about an hour or until double the size.
• Remove the plastic wrap and bake at (350°F)= (176°C) degrees for about 15-20 minutes on a greased cookie sheet. Do not overbake.
• They should be golden brown. I spread a little butter on the tops after baking so the rolls are soft on top. If you like a crispier top you can skip this step.

Easy To Make Breadsticks

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Breadsticks Fluffy and Delicious

Course Bread

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 12 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 27 minutes minutes

Servings 12 people

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 4 Teaspoons SAF Instant Yeast
• 1/2  Cup Water
• 2 Cups Warm Milk
• 1/4  Cup Olive Oil
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 1-1/2 Teaspoons Sea Salt
• 4 Teaspoons Dough Enhancer
• 2 Eggs slightly beaten
• 6-7 Cups White Bread Flour
• 1/4 to 1/2 Cup Melted Butter
• Garlic Salt
• Parmesan Cheese

Instructions

• Place all of the ingredients in order into a Bosch Bread Mixer or a very large bowl to mix and knead by hand. The recipe calls for 6-7 cups of white bread flour…you add flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
• Knead by hand or machine for 8-10 minutes. Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise until double in size.
• Roll the dough out after the first rise and cut with a knife or pizza cutter into desired shapes.
• Dip in melted butter and place onto a greased cookie sheet.
• Sprinkle with garlic salt, parmesan cheese, or any desired seasoning of choice.
• Cover with greased plastic wrap and let rise once more. Remove plastic wrap and bake at (350°F) = (176°C) degrees for 12-20 minutes depending on the size of breadsticks you make. Do not overbake. Serve warm right out of the oven.

Hamburger Buns

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Hamburger Buns

Course Bread

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 35 minutes minutes

Servings 6 people

Author Linda Loosli

Ingredients

• 2-3/4 cups flour – I use bread flour
• 2-1/2 tablespoons SAF instant yeast
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 4 tablespoons butter softened
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 2/3  cups parmesan cheese-grated
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 egg
• 2/3  cups water

Instructions

• Combine the ingredients in the order shown above into your Bosch or Kitchen Aid Mixer with a dough hook. This is by far the easiest recipe to make hamburger or hot dog buns (depending on how you shape them).
• I add more flour until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Cover and let rise with some greased plastic wrap for about one hour. Remove plastic and evenly divide the dough into 6 balls.
• Roll each ball, tuck the edges under, and place on a greased cookie sheet. Flatten each ball to about 3-1/2 to 4 inches wide.
• Cover the rolls with plastic wrap and let rise until double. Remove plastic wrap and bake at 350°F) = (176°C) degrees for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

If you are looking for bread bags for storing your bread, these are the ones I buy: Bread Bag – 100-count/ Includes 100 Cable Ties.

I’ve started using a bread-making machine again instead of using a stand mixer or my Bosch. I use the machine to mix the bread, but I still cook it in my oven. The brand I use is Zojirushi. I have a great friend in Florida whom I introduced to making bread a few months ago, and she now has one as well. She loves it and makes bread or rolls for her family almost every day.

If you want to have a unique experience, consider making bread in your Dutch oven. It’s fun to cook outside or in your regular oven.

Some Fun Ways to Use Your Homemade Bread

Sure, you can use your bread to make those standard sandwiches for a school lunch or to pack for work. But don’t forget, homemade bread is delicious when making French toast, grilled cheese sandwiches, bread with soup, or just a slice with warm butter, jams, and jellies. We’ve grown to love garlic bread, and have also added some spices or other add-ons for a unique artisan bread option.

Final Word

Please learn how to make bread; it’s really easy to do if you have fresh ingredients. I’ll personally walk you through it every step of the way if you follow the instructions shown, along with the special tips given. Let’s teach the world to be self-reliant, cook from scratch, and love doing so! May God bless this world, Linda

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