Baking Bread

Mike and I have started to make our own bread. We don't do it all the time, though we have been doing it a little more often lately. It is so yummy to have fresh baked french bread with an italian dinner, or a pot of soup.

This was one of our first batches we ever made. It got a little bit burnt but such is trial and error. It still tasted yummy. We had this with a big pot of spaghetti. One of them we even sliced and rubbed olive oil and garlic to make some toasted garlic bread, yum!!

Once we got comfortable with the really easy, really simple white loaves (all it is is flour, yeast, water, and salt...that's it!!) we started to experiment a bit. I made a honey whole wheat loaf. It was a first attempt. It turned out very pretty, though I don't think the taste was quite right. But we did use it for a few days as sandwich bread and then once it started to get a little stale I made french toast with it.

These were all the ingredients that went into the whole wheat bread, quite a bit more then just 4!

Here it is after it all mixed and kneaded, setting for it's first rise.

This is after it has risen once. You then mold it into whatever shape you are going to use, in this case a load into a loaf pan, and let it rise one more time while the oven is preheating.

And when it is all done this is what you get:

Pretty huh??

I have also made homemade cinnamon roles a few times. This is an old Melde family recipe, and they are quite the commodity at gift exchanges!!

I didn't get any pictures of them after they were baked. But the girls I made them for loved them! I think there were only a few left after our breakfast meet up to watch the Bachelor! (BTW: I still think Jake made the wrong decision!)

As we do the basics more we have started to experiment more. I will try to remember to take pics as we continue to expand. I need to try the whole wheat bread again...