Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Bread Making Success!

I have a confession: I am afraid of yeast. I haven't had a whole lot of luck with bread making so far, and I'm always terrified that I haven't properly activated the yeast and the dough won't rise. Well friends, let me introduce you to this light wheat bread recipe, which if I can make, you can too. It uses instant yeast, so no worrying about liquid temperatures and dissolving and activating the yeast. I literally did a little happy dance around the kitchen when it came out of the oven looking beautiful and perfect. Knowing that my husband is eating his daily turkey and cheese sandwich on freshly homemade bread has brought my heart joy this week (it's the little things, really).


The recipe, of course, is from Smitten Kitchen. I can't praise this blog enough. I feel like Deb and I would be friends if we met. Also, I think she's a good teacher. And a bread baking enthusiast to boot, so what better way to learn the fine art of bread baking? Watch out, I might start making a loaf every week!

The original recipe is from Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, a book that I'm thinking of buying. Give this a try on a Sunday afternoon when you don't have a lot going on - the actual "hands-on" time is only about 15 minutes or so, and the rest is done while you do other things around the house, or catch up on your DVR, or whatever! It's the perfect sandwich bread. Once you have a taste of this, you won't want to go back to pre-sliced, store-bought bread! And you avoid all the crazy ingredients they put in that stuff these days (read an ingredient list, it's scary).



I've dispelled my fear of bread-baking, now it's your turn!

2 comments:

Julia said...

Beeyootiful bread! Nice work. :)

Allison said...

Hooray for homemade bread! I will definitely try this out. :)