MoFo: Baking Bread

Who doesn't love homemade bread?  If you raised your hand, then you probably haven't found the right recipe yet!  I am still perfecting mine, but I think I may have recently hit on the right one. 

I used to use a bread machine, and it made good bread.  In fact, I wore out my first one, given as a Christmas gift back in 1998, and had bought a second one at a yard sale.  I recently gave that one to my sister so she could try her hand at making bread for the first time. 

Here in this house, we've moved on to using a KitchenAid mixer and the oven, which is better only in the sense that you don't have that little hole in the side where the mixing paddle bakes in as you do in the machine. 


Right now I'm using a half whole wheat/half white recipe from a bread machine cookbook, and following the rising and baking directions from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. 

 Here's the bread after rising.  You could leave it in this shape, or you could put it into pans like I do, to make it into traditional sandwich bread shape.

 Dough split in half, folded as shown in the cookbook, then left to rise again.

 The finished product.  For those who have never baked bread before, the idea can be a bit overwhelming.  After you've done it two or three times, though, it becomes routine, and you won't even need to refer to your recipe.  Plus you get to avoid the high prices of wholesome store bought bread, or the nasty ingredients of the other kind of store bought bread.  It is most definitely worth it!



  Your vegan two cents:  Do you like to bake bread?  Do you prefer a bread machine or oven?  How about kneading, do you use it as stress relief or is it just another annoying chore?