Sunday, October 05, 2008

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!

6 comments:

Alexandra and Benjamin said...

Morgan, you are cute! Please share your wheat bread recipe when you get a good one. I am definitely interested! :)

Leesa said...

You are so domestic! I love it!! Are you sure you arent related to Martha Stewart??? You are too cute!!! Miss ya Chica!!

B said...

I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for in the conversion area... but I do know that 1 cup of wheat berries = 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour. Hope that helps with your recipe! :) I have a recipe that I use that I really like, but you have to use hard red winter wheat, the hard white winter wheat makes that recipe taste dry... so if you aren't going to grind your wheat and you're just going to use flour I'm not really sure how it would turn out. Let me know if that's one you'd want to try.

Josh and Michelle said...

wow you are good! I havent a clue how to make a loaf of bread.Esp. without a bread machine. But I do agree that it is delish. zi cant believe Asher eats 4 slices!

Heidi said...

I love making our own bread however I have been slacking since Max was born! I have a recipe I love but it it also half white and half wheat

Anonymous said...

Morgs,

I'll send you my whole wheat bread recipe that I used when you guys were little and I was still domestic. Sadly, those days seem to be gone. You only have to rise it once in the pan after about 10 minutes of beating it in the Bosch. I also have an amazing lemon bread recipe that uses fresh lemons. I will send you that one too. Yum!