my problem

Recently I have been dealing with a problem: I discovered that I'm sick of store-bought bread. Throughout my pregnancy I was making home made bread (that was when I had a lot more time on my hands). I didn't buy bread until after K was born--at that point I felt that I was so busy that I couldn't make it myself anymore. But I guess I am spoiled because now when lunch time comes around all I can think about is how nice it would be to just eat several slices of fresh, real bread. I'm also tired of spending the money for store-bought bread--RT will eat the air bread that costs $0.50 a loaf because he just needs something to spread the peanut butter on (his words, not mine), but I only like certain kinds of whole wheat (home made white bread is still good to me), and those are more expensive. I've also been wishing I had bread to snack on, and store bought bread just doesn't work for snacking for me. (By the way, on my side of the family, we get boughten bread, not store bought bread.)

So I've decided I'm going to try making home made bread again. I am starting to feel like I have time to do it again. However, I am trying out a new trick: making bread mixes. I got the idea from everydayfoodstorage.net (the link is on my blog roll now, because I read her stuff all the time).

Before I explain how I do it, here is the recipe I used today (from the T family cookbook).

Delicious Grain Bread (Bread Machine)

1-1/8 cups water

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup crushed bran cereal (1 cup whole flakes)

2 Tb. cracked wheat

2 Tb. dry milk

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. yeast

2 Tb. margarine

2 Tb. honey

Mix in order required by your bread machine. Pull out after dough cycle and raise and bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until brown and crisp (or bake in the machine). You can use raisin bran for the cereal.

I just make it by hand because I don't have a bread machine.

To make the mixes, I put all of the dry ingredients in a ziploc bag (one mix per bag). I have some wonderful margarine powder in my food storage that I bought from Walton Feed, so I put that in the mixes too. So next time I make bread, I will just have to mix the yeast, water, and honey, add the mix, and then continue as normal for the rest. For me, mixing, kneading, and shaping takes the most time, and that part isn't eliminated, but I think it will save me time and make me feel a little more willing to bake bread if I have these mixes made, since I won't have to get out all the ingredients and do all the measuring. I made my first mixes today, so I hope this works out well!

This won't work for all bread recipes--some recipes that I have used are just water, flour, oil, honey, yeast, and salt. But I think this will really help me for most of my breadmaking. I may also try it for biscuits and muffins, which we make all the time.

I have also been trying something new for shaping my loaves. Instead of using my hands to shape the dough, I put a little flour (it really doesn't take that much!) all over the ball of dough, roll it out flat with my rolling pin, then roll it like cinnamon rolls. After that I can just pinch the ends under and pinch the bottom a little bit, and then I have a beautiful loaf. At first I thought it would be way too much work, but I actually like it because it makes it so that I don't have to use as much flour to make the dough manageable (which means my bread is more moist), shaping my loaves doesn't take as long, and the finished product looks really nice.

Here's my finished product:


While I took the bread out of the oven, K was loafing around in a bath towel and a diaper.