Bread Baking
I love to bake my own bread, and I really should just stop buying the craptastic stuff at the store and make my own weekly. It tastes better, is better for me and it makes me feel so lovely to do the work.
I just finished kneeding up two loaves of wheat bread. They'll rise for an hour, be punched down, allowed to rise again for another hour, then be baked. I love the smell of fresh bread dough, the yeasties growing and getting happy, the gluten forming as I work the dough back and forth on the counter, working in the last of the flour, the feel of the dough as it moves from sticky to smooth and elastic. It's a wonderfully magical experience to bake bread.
I tend to hum while I work, and kneading bread dough, like knitting and crochet, always has me humming the same wordless song. I wish I knew where I learned this song, because I've been humming it while I work for years now.
Well, that's what I'm up to right now. Baking bread. It's a lovely, lovely thing, and I'm so glad that I taught myself all those years ago how to bake. More than once in life being able to bake a good, hearty bread with a nice, thick crust has meant the difference between eating well and going without.
I just finished kneeding up two loaves of wheat bread. They'll rise for an hour, be punched down, allowed to rise again for another hour, then be baked. I love the smell of fresh bread dough, the yeasties growing and getting happy, the gluten forming as I work the dough back and forth on the counter, working in the last of the flour, the feel of the dough as it moves from sticky to smooth and elastic. It's a wonderfully magical experience to bake bread.
I tend to hum while I work, and kneading bread dough, like knitting and crochet, always has me humming the same wordless song. I wish I knew where I learned this song, because I've been humming it while I work for years now.
Well, that's what I'm up to right now. Baking bread. It's a lovely, lovely thing, and I'm so glad that I taught myself all those years ago how to bake. More than once in life being able to bake a good, hearty bread with a nice, thick crust has meant the difference between eating well and going without.