Well, I've been very domestic this weekend. I'm currently finishing off my 7th load of laundry, yeah I got a bit behind on that. The fun thing I did this weekend was make a loaf of bread. I got the baking jones a month ago and have made a couple of batches of chocolate chip cookies. My cookie recommendation is to use Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips, they make very simple cookies really awesome.
So I spend today making bread. We don't have a stand mixer so I got to knead the bread by hand, which wasn't that bad but if I want to make bread on a regular basis I'm going to have to get a Kitchen Aid mixer with a bread hook. There was probably 30 minutes of preparation, half of which was kneading, 3 hours of rising and dough resting and 40 minutes of baking. So, it isn't that awful a thing to do while watching football.
Here are a few pictures of my bread. I used a simple recipe from the Joy of Cooking. It tastes pretty good, too.
The loaf is pretty heavy, almost two pounds.
cool! Let me know if you want another recipe-- I have a GREAT french bread recipe. FYI, putting a pan of boiling water in the oven with the bread makes the crust extra crunchy (dont ask me why).
Im a little ahead in my flour purchasing-- I need to get back into baking.
Posted by: Ln | November 10, 2008 at 09:34 AM
Shh...dont tell anyone...I like to bake bread too. I have the Kitchen Aid, greatest thing ever!
Another trick I use is to make the dough in a bread machine once and a while. Some doughs work really well to let the machine do the proofing and resting. Quick and easy way to make dinner rolls and pizza doughs.
Posted by: OhCaptain | November 16, 2008 at 09:58 PM