I am a bread making machine!

...or at least I'm trying to be.

It will come as no surprise when I tell you that groceries in NY are a little pricier than groceries in Utah. One of our staples is bread. Asher eats about 4 pieces of toast for breakfast, usually some kind of sandwich for lunch, and often times will have a piece of "toastie" for a snack some time during the day. That's not even counting the sandwiches or toast that Nate and I eat. So yeah, we eat a lot of bread, and at $3 or $4 a loaf, it adds up pretty quick. So, I have decided to start making our own bread. I remember back in the day when my parents made our bread every week, and I hated it. I wanted good old processed white bread like my friends always had for their sandwiches. If only I knew how yummy it was back then. Nothing beats a piece of bread fresh out of the oven with homemade jam on it. Oh so good.

Well, today I attempted my first batch of bread, and it turned out scrumptious (if I do say so myself!!). I am still getting to know my oven, I don't know if it's the small size, but everything seems to cook faster, so I am always having to adjust the temperature and time. I just happened to check on the bread after about 25 minutes (they were supposed to take 35-40 minutes to cook... and I had turned the oven to 25 degrees cooler than recommended) and they were perfect, as you can see...

Nate thought it was delicious as well. Hopefully Asher won't have any problems eating it.

I just used a whole wheat bread recipe out of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (which was actually half whole wheat and half all purpose flour), as all the other recipes I found only said the amount of pre-ground wheat to use, so I didn't know how much whole wheat flour that would translate in to. But I do want to try different recipes, and find which one we like the best. I would like to use one where I only have to let it rise once. I found one on a blog, but like I said, it only mentions the wheat before grinding, so if anyone knows how to figure out how to convert that to regular store bought flour, that'd be some useful information!

I also made some lemon bread from the same cookbook. It was pretty good, but I think I am going to keep looking for a better recipe, as it wasn't my fave. So if anyone has a really good lemon bread recipe, please do share!