So, I know what you are thinking-"
Necha has lost her mind. Now she is taking pictures of bread." But here me out on this one. I am SO proud of myself! I have never, in all of my 26 years, made bread. And why should I when I can pick it up on isle 4 so much easier! I'll tell you why-because I have 450 pounds of wheat in my food storage (the recommended amount for two adults and two children under the age of six.) I decided that a barrel of wheat is going to do me no good if I don't know how to use it. So that is what I did, and that is why I am so darn proud of myself! The first step was finding the perfect recipe. I love wheat bread, but it is always heavy and not so good for sandwiches. I wanted me some fluffy wheat bread like you can buy in the stores! Well I searched the Internet and came up with this five page recipe for "fluffy" whole wheat bread-or so it claimed. Needless to say I was terrified. Five pages? And the recipe sounds like this "If you add too much of this, you will ruin your bread and you might as well throw it in the trash now. And if you don't add enough then the earth will explode and all man-kind will die. So get this exactly right!"
Ekkkk!
Okay so "mix some stuff together." This wasn't so hard. I could do this! What was I so afraid of! It's just bread for crying out loud! After all, I am the grand daughter of a baker! Baking bread should be in my blood!
And then, an hour later I was pretty sure I had screwed the whole thing up! "Is this REALLY what it's supposed to look like? This is nothing like what my mom's bread dough looked like." It was really tough and hard to handle. Too much flour maybe? It tasted right; it just wasn't the same texture. Fluffy bread indeed!!
But at least I learned what this little
doo-hickey is for the Kitchen-aide mixer!
After a little while of mixing the bread in the mixer it started to make funny noises like it was tired of pushing around this big ball of goo. I never would have thought to put bread dough in a
kitchen-aide mixer-except that the recipe said to-because, as the recipe
explained, whole wheat bread is different from white bread and it has to be mixed together for much longer...which is 30 minutes of kneading by hand, or 10 minutes in a mixer. And who wants to knead dough for 30 minutes? But in the end I pulled it out and kneaded it for a few minutes to save my poor mixer from sudden death.
Well, it's tough and chewy, but there is no turning back now. I might as well cook this hunk of dough and see what happens. If nothing else at least I would learn what NOT to do. (Which would be trying stupid stuff like making my own bread!)
And low and behold, 5 and a half hours after I started, BREAD! And not just any bread, 100% whole wheat bread, which I made from scratch with my own wheat kernels that I ground myself! And look at those beauties! Okay okay, so it isn't fluffy like I wanted it to be, but it was so yummy! It may not make the greatest sandwiches, but at least I know my family won't starve to death staring at barrel of wheat!
And who doesn't love warm bread and butter with their dinner!
So, I know what you are thinking-"Necha has lost her mind. Now she is taking pictures of bread." But here me out on this one. I am SO proud of myself! I have never, in all of my 26 years, made bread. And why should I when I can pick it up on isle 4 so much easier! I'll tell you why-because I have 450 pounds of wheat in my food storage (the recommended amount for two adults and two children under the age of six.) I decided that a barrel of wheat is going to do me no good if I don't know how to use it. So that is what I did, and that is why I am so darn proud of myself! The first step was finding the perfect recipe. I love wheat bread, but it is always heavy and not so good for sandwiches. I wanted me some fluffy wheat bread like you can buy in the stores! Well I searched the Internet and came up with this five page recipe for "fluffy" whole wheat bread-or so it claimed. Needless to say I was terrified. Five pages? And the recipe sounds like this "If you add too much of this, you will ruin your bread and you might as well throw it in the trash now. And if you don't add enough then the earth will explode and all man-kind will die. So get this exactly right!" Ekkkk!
Okay so "mix some stuff together." This wasn't so hard. I could do this! What was I so afraid of! It's just bread for crying out loud! After all, I am the grand daughter of a baker! Baking bread should be in my blood!
And then, an hour later I was pretty sure I had screwed the whole thing up! "Is this REALLY what it's supposed to look like? This is nothing like what my mom's bread dough looked like." It was really tough and hard to handle. Too much flour maybe? It tasted right; it just wasn't the same texture. Fluffy bread indeed!!
After a little while of mixing the bread in the mixer it started to make funny noises like it was tired of pushing around this big ball of goo. I never would have thought to put bread dough in a kitchen-aide mixer-except that the recipe said to-because, as the recipe explained, whole wheat bread is different from white bread and it has to be mixed together for much longer...which is 30 minutes of kneading by hand, or 10 minutes in a mixer. And who wants to knead dough for 30 minutes? But in the end I pulled it out and kneaded it for a few minutes to save my poor mixer from sudden death.
Well, it's tough and chewy, but there is no turning back now. I might as well cook this hunk of dough and see what happens. If nothing else at least I would learn what NOT to do. (Which would be trying stupid stuff like making my own bread!)
And low and behold, 5 and a half hours after I started, BREAD! And not just any bread, 100% whole wheat bread, which I made from scratch with my own wheat kernels that I ground myself! And look at those beauties! Okay okay, so it isn't fluffy like I wanted it to be, but it was so yummy! It may not make the greatest sandwiches, but at least I know my family won't starve to death staring at barrel of wheat!
And who doesn't love warm bread and butter with their dinner!
5 comments:
Oh my goodness! I'm so impressed! I've never tried to make bread either. I tried to make cinnamon rolls once, and they were as hard as rocks. . . I gave up after that. Maybe I should try again, you've inspired me!!
Oh. . .shoot! I was signed in under Jim's name again. . . this is Leslie Jacobs, NOT JIM! Jim would NEVER try to make bread.
See. . . it's Leslie. . .this is to prove to you that it's me. . . NOT JIM!! I would laugh if Jim tried to make cinnamon rolls, or bread, or bake anything. Sorry for all the posts.
VERY Impressive!! I was excited when I made bread with my breadmaker.
Ok, I was laughing all the way through this with tears in my eyes. It was a great blog and I congratulate you on your baking prowess. I congratulate you on this great milestone in your life!
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