Show of hands, how many of you have wanted to throw something after trying to  bake bread for the first time?

If you had asked me several years ago, I would have raised both my hands AND my feet in response. 

Not to say that there isn’t sufficient guidance out there.  Pick up any Betty Crocker book on baking bread, and you’ll get a lot of good advice.  But the reason why I mention that it’s an ART, is because every loaf of bread is surprisingly and wonderfully different from each other.  No matter how exact you try to make each of your loaves.

I picked up on the art some years ago out of necessity, when my first husband and I were on a very tight food budget, and I was trying to feed a family of four on less than $140 a month……all right, it was more or less a family of two adults and two very small children, but still, I was nursing them both at that time.  So, as far as I’m concerned, the mathematics still apply.

Not only did I pick up on that, but I learned how to make a whole shitload of “groceries” from scratch as well.  I made ice cream, peanut butter, lunchmeat, mayonaisse, dessert syrups, jams and jellies, granola and granola bars, etc., etc. ,etc……you name it, I learned how to make it.

However, breadbaking was something I became most proud of.  More so than lemonade, or pies and cakes, or the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  My whole wheat sandwich bread was something I’d wished I could enter into a blue-ribbon contest at a local fair.  The reason is because I made it into an art form more so than I’d made it into an assembly line production.

What goes into it?  Consider not just the baking ingredients, but the form you want it to make, the temperature and the humidity level and the barometric pressure of the environment the bread is being kneaded and baked in.  Do you want to make it with honey?  Butter?  Shortening?  Do you want to split the top, and do you want to sprinkle rolled oats over it all?  Plus, remember that shaping it at all makes for half the work after kneading it and letting it rise the first time.

You could make it into a formless loaf on a pizza stone with whole wheat flour sprinkled over it all making it more like a “country” loaf of bread, or you could fit it in to bread pans and brush melted butter over it all (that’s my favorite way of presenting it).  Once the family starts to smell bread baking in the oven (more attention to detail……keep the pans on the lowest rack so the loaves are baking closest to the heat source and spray the oven with water ONCE before closing the door for good – thus making an extra crispy crust if you so desire) – they’ll start lining up wondering when the final curtain call will happen.

Then you bring the loaves out.  Take them out of the pans or remove them from the baking stone and dump them gently onto a cooling rack.  Knock on the bottoms to make sure you can hear a hollow sound – that says they’re done – and let them cool.  I like to brush some more melted butter on top.

Then the most cruel part:  everyone has to wait until the loaves are completely cooled.

Then you get to slice them, and it’s up to you to decide how thick or thin you and your family wants their pieces of bread.  Obviously, we haven’t touched on the other varying kinds of breads - dinner rolls, popovers, pancakes, muffins, waffles, cornbreads,  tortillas – but sandwich bread seems to be the most ubiquitous bread in our family, and usually in most families here in the U.S.

OK OK OK….so obviously you’re free to use the electric breadmakers or to use some no-knead breads like soda-bread:  but I prefer to get my hands into the dough itself, feel how it’s adapting and coping in it’s environment, and adjust my times accordingly.  It’s like a communication between me and the ingredients taking shape, and I’m like a sculptor bit by bit shaping what will eventually become a delicious edible work of art.

My family doesn’t fawn over ME like they do my bread, but they’re pretty happy with the result.  AND it’s not as cost-effective as, say, riding a bicycle down the block instead of driving your car and using precious gasoline in the process, but it keeps us together in the same house JUST a little bit longer than otherwise.

Oh…….and it takes out the packaging, so BOO-YAH!!

Should you decide to take up the art of bread baking, remember to take your time and practice practice practice.  You WON’T get it the first time, but once you do, don’t be surprised if you get hooked.

Happy baking!

Just because it’s more affordable, produces less waste, and the kids get a neato-bandido science lesson in bacteria.

So simple – get yourself a 32-oz. insulated thermos bottle, a small 6 oz. cup of plain commerical yogurt, and a quart of milk (skim, 2%, or whole).  Then make sure that the spoon you use and whatever else you use is sterilized.  I boil some water and pour that in the thermos and put the spoon that I’ll stir with along with the candy thermometer in there, too.  Let that sit.

Heat the milk up to boiling, then put that pan in a bath of ice water to cool off the milk.  You’ll want to get it to 110 degrees (F).  While it’s still hot, you can dissolve some sugar or honey if you want to sweeten the yogurt at all.  I put 2-3 tablespoons of sugar for every quart of milk that I’m incubating.  I also like to make vanilla yogurt, so I’ll put in a teaspoon of vanilla extract as well.

Once the milk is at 110 degrees, stir in a heaping tablespoon full of commercial yogurt, then pour the mixture into the thermos, close it up, wrap a towel around it, and stick it in a dark warm place (like an unlit oven) for about 10 hours or overnight.

After it has set (usually around 10 hours or so depending on the quality of the commercial yogurt), you’ll open up the thermos and VOILA!!  It should be all thick and sticky and not pour out right away (I have to actually shake the mixture out into the storage container.  Homemade yogurt!  It’s tangy and sweet, and you can then use it for your smoothies, snacks with granola sprinkles, or you can even make frozen yogurt for a dessert if you wish in your ice cream machine.

Very cool.  I love making yogurt, cured meats, homemade bread, and pies and cakes.  Now, if only Thalia can master the art of making homemade cheese………