Earth-Mother Me

A few years ago I decided that I was going to learn to bake bread. So I went on the internet, found a recipe, gathered the necessary stuff and got to it. The results were less than spectacular. So I tried again. And the results were still less than spectacular. I could go on and on and just type the same couple sentences over and over again, but to spare you the boredom of that, I can tell you that each loaf that I baked, could have been mortared into a pile and formed a reasonable retaining wall out in the garden.

I looked at bread "trouble-shooting" sites, I read and reread recipes and instructions and couldn't figure out where I was going wrong. And if I did manage to get a loaf to rise a tiny bit, I would find on slicing it, that the top was hollow. You have no idea how frustrated I was. But then one day I saw someone on tv making bread and in minutes, I could see where I was going wrong. You see, every recipe that I looked at called for a specific amount of water and a specific amount of flour. Not one of them suggested adding your flour a bit at a time, working it in, add a bit more and so on, until you get a nice workable dough. For the most part, if you add exactly what is called for in any of these recipes, it is too much and the result is a great lump of dough that is so solid you couldn't knead it if you had arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his glory days.

So I finally got the hang of it, but now my goal has been to figure out the amounts so that I can produce one little loaf that just fits into my little convection/toaster oven. It always comes out with a couple of really toasted stripes on the top because the elements are a tad close, but it is still good and just the right amount for a couple. I always found that I tossed away more bread than we ate when I bought large store made loaves. But these smaller loaves are a better size for us.

You know, when I was making my bricks, it became a bit of a personal crusade to actually get a good loaf and there were a few times that I actually mixed up a batch of bread two times in one day. Funnily enough, even though I was churning out one lousy loaf after another I found the whole process strangely satisfying. Made me feel very "earth-motherish" if you know what I mean.