Bread

I have always wanted to make my own bread, but thought that kneading was some sort of intricate and tricky process that I just wouldn't be able to get right. I finally decided to tackle my fear, and the hubby and I set out on a breadmaking adventure. We thought it would be fun to have a pictorial documentation of the process, so here it is for your enjoyment!


This is the recipe we used, from my Joy of Cooking cookbook:


Here I am mixing the yeast with warm water. I opted to buy the jar of yeast instead of the packets, because it is actually much cheaper in the long run:


While the yeast dissolved, I worked on mixing up some other ingredients in my trusty Kitchenaid mixer. Apparently I had some sort of weird ponytail thing going on that day:


Adding the melted butter! Actually, it's margarine, but that works too:


And a little salt:


And the yeast! Without this, it would have been a breadmaking disaster:


Now just add the flour and mix:


Mix until it looks like this:


And get ready for some kneading fun! It actually turned out to be super easy, so I don't know what I was afraid of for all those years.


Here it is, all kneaded and ready to rise. See you in a little while, ball of dough!


It grew:


And now I get to punch it down - Take, that ya big ball of dough!


Forming it into mounds for each loaf:


And forming it into loaves:


And here are all my pretty dough loaves all lined up in their pans and ready to rise:


Get on in there and cook up into some tasty bread!


Hmm... Somehow I thought it would turn out bigger than this...

Ok, I know that was cheesy, but we just had to do it!

Here's what it really looked like:


So I put it on the cooling rack to cool before I sliced it up.


After much impatient waiting, we finally got to slice it!




Let me tell you, this bread was so good, I don't ever want to buy store bought bread again! As a matter of fact, I have another batch ready to go in the oven right now.