Sunday, March 09, 2008

Daily Bread

Once upon a time, I baked bread nearly every week in my bread machine. I even wooed my sweetie with warm loaves of fresh-baked bread.

Then one day I thought I damaged the bread machine cord. And I was getting tired of having to work around its bulk just sitting there on the kitchen counter day after day. So I took the bread machine downstairs.

This past week, I brought the bread machine back upstairs. I checked the cord again. It seemed fine. I made a loaf of whole-wheat-oatmeal-honey bread with a smattering of flax meal. It was very good. It made the house smell very good.

In these days of $4-a-loaf storebought bread, it's kind of a win-win -- an economical alternative whose ingredients are completely in our control.

2 comments:

LoieJ said...

No matter the cost, homemade bread tastes better. One key to cheaper homemade bread is to buy the yeast at a food coop, if possible.

Regular store bread and homemade bread are like from two different planets.

We don't have a "real" bakery nearby. I mix my bread in the bread maker but bake it in the oven.

LutheranChik said...

I've often thought about transferring the dough to my own bread pans, just because I think the bread machine tends to dry out the crust. (As it is, I cover the just-baked bread with a moist dishtowel just to kind of steam the crust.) I have a recipe for bread-machine challah that I will bake separately from the machine, just so I can braid the loaf. (I have rotten luck placing challah dough on a flat pan, so I do what one of my granparents did and braid the dough, then put it in a bread pan. You get the nice braided design on the top while still having a tall loaf with firm sides.