When poets waxed lyrical about the glories of well baked bread, they had to be talking about a rare and uncommon thing. I have thermometers and a temperature controled oven and every modern convenience, and I'm still stuggling with this bread-baking thing. Especially that second rise. (But I gotta tell you, this dense bread is really yummy!) What blows me away is that our foremothers, for millenia, did all their baking in a wood-fired oven with no thermostat. How did they know when it was hot enough? How did they keep it hot enough? No wonder there's all this har-de-har about new brides not being able to turn out a decent meal. This is the sort of thing that would takes years of practice. My Norwegian grandmother was cook for a logging camp, and fed thirty men with what she cooked on a wood stove. I am not fit to wash her pots and pans.
Bread baking has been a humbling experience so far, but I'm not done yet by any means!!
I am, however gaining back the weight I fought to lose. Homemade bead, even indifferent home-made bread, is delicious!!
Roxie, Not to worry. You'll soon get the hang of it, the feel of the dough when it has been kneaded enough. I think that Laurel's Kitchen cookbook gives excellent step by step directions to help you make great bread.
ReplyDelete....and when that bread comes right out of the oven, it's HEAVEN!!! I love the smell of bread baking!!!!
ReplyDeleteHomemade bread is the best but does take some practice. As you've already learned, eating the "mistakes" is the best part.
ReplyDeleteWe are on the same page
ReplyDeleteCome on over sometime when you have a free day and we'll bake bread together. It isn't hard. Truly.
ReplyDeleteI love summers because then I have time to bake fresh bread for my family. The smell of the yeast, the bread baking, etc., they all make the house seem more homey.
ReplyDeleteFresh warm bread. Gotta love it. Keep at it, you'll get it.
ReplyDeleteRoxie, hold onto your hat! This is a test. If you bring me bread, you will pass.
ReplyDeleteYou know about fifteen years ago, my mom offered to buy me a bread machine and I declined (I had no place to put it.) Ah, the follies of youth.
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