Fresh Homemade Bread at 8 am.

FOOD PORN by Liz. 

I'm still recouping after one of the worst days ever. So to treat myself I have made some fresh bread and my usual morning fruit and veggie juice.

 Let me start by saying that bread is not that easy to make. I was very skeptical about doing it. All the homemade bread that I had tasted sucked. It was bland, chewy and meaty. (My brother went through a faze of making fancy health breads in his bread machine). AND it took too long, way too much effort for my lazy butt. My mom would come over and be like "why don't you bake your own bread you little tree hugger you?" And by the way she never said that, she's British and was more like, "why don't you have any bread? I'm hungry- I used to make bread all the time, it's easy -even you couldnt screw it up!" She didnt say that either, but that's what I heard.

I was trying to cut out bread and was using whole grain tortillas to make Watt's Peanut Butter and Jelly Sando's,  burritos , quesidias and tacos... I love you mr tortilla, such a wonder.

 But this didn't stand a chance with my English mother who eats pretty much a loaf of white bread a day. So I thought about it, and thought about it some more, and was like. "No it's a pain in the ass". But then my father started making fancy breads.

The deal with my dad is that he gets into "hobby mode" as I like to call it. He does everything from the book exactly as they tell him to do it, and the product is almost always perfect. like a week and $500 worth of supplies later... and then I get to sit back and listen to him blather on about how making bread is the new black.

So anyway, now my dad was making bread and telling me I gotta try it. Which made me really not want to do it, cause everything he does is a pain and takes too much effort and fancy gear. Until he brought over one of his loafs. It was still warm and looked as if he had stolen it from Panera. (a really nice Bread store). AND not only did he trick me into eating his bread but he also brought me a 15 page print out of how to make bread the easy way. So I took that 15 pages and cut it down to one page and did it my own way. The really easy way. Keep in mind, this bread is super bland and tastes like oatmeal. Its bland because you put tasty things on it like peanut butter or jelly or an egg. Let the food be the taste. Here is the recipe on the side of my King Arthur Bread Bag. If you don't want to read the directions, you can just skip to the pictures below. The directions are boring to read, even for me. 

Oatmeal Sandwich Bread:

3 cups of King Arthur Flour

1 cup old fashioned oats

2 Tablespoons of butter (I don't use butter)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I don't use salt)

3 Tablespoons of honey or brown sugar ( I use my local honey)

2 teaspoons  or 1 packet of active or instant yeast

1 1.4 cup luke warm milk ( I use 1 cup hot almond milk and 1 cup hot water) 

3/4 cup raisins ( I havent tried this yet)

As you can see I make it my own. I never like to follow the sheep off the cliff. I found with the first batch of bread that it was too dry and clumpy, I needed to add more water in order for it to be like dough,( like soft moist dough you see Pizza makers flipping around). 

Ok now get a big bowl and mix this together. I like to knead it with my hands so I can feel the consistency of it. May I suggest you take your rings off for this... what a mess. I knead it into a ball and then put it back into the bowl and let it rise for an hour. Then I knead it again, line the bowl with saran wrap and then put my dough ball in it and cover it for another hour. It can stay in the fridge for a few days, and will get more sour as it waits for you. 

30 minutes to a day later... I take it out of the fridge and knead it into a shape of my liking and then wait for it to rise one more time for a half hour. 

Then I put it in the oven at 425 for about 20-30 minutes. 

AND THIS IS SIMPLE? Sounds like a lot of work. It is. If your lazy don't bother. 

First off this is a bag of bread that I would normally eat. Please take a moment to look at all the ingredients in this bag. One of which is HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. Too many ingredients for my liking. If you don't know what an ingredient is or if you cant pronounce it, don't eat it. 

This is my bread after being in the fridge for the night . The ingredients surround it. King Arthur Bread Flour, Mill Creek Apiary Honey (local guy that makes the best honey in the world) , Active Dry Yeast, and Old Fashioned Oats.  The recipe is on the King Arthur Bread Bag. 

Here is my bread hanging out with crap in the bag. This is for size comparison.  

This is what it looks like when I'm done making it into a shape of my liking.  

I dust it with some flour, and I personally like to give it a spritz of water to help it expand in the oven. Some people put a tray of water under the bread, but thats too much work for me. I'm not a chemist.

25 minutes later I have this space ship. As Forrest says, "you never know what your gonna get". This is not what I had in mind, but whatever. 

Which one do you want? Crap in the bag or hot fresh bread? Shut up- I know, the bag looks better. oh..well.. 

It tastes good though. Very yeasty when warm, but once it cools down it has a little bit of a sweet taste of oatmeal and honey.

It took longer to write this blog then it did to make the bread.... In the meantime.....
Just got a phone call from my dad saying that one of his kids (he has 5 including me) is eating a giant hole in his fabulous artisan bread. This is a crime and you will be punished. You're a bread muncher that hates crust and we all know what your doing. So in order to right a wrong I am publishing your crime on my blog for everyone to see what you have done to our dad's hard work.

There was even a note... hard to read yes, but she knew what she was doing.

She just grabs the middle part out like a mouse. 

and then plays with her technology devices without a care.