My Daily Bread

If I wanted to be successful at making the bread my family ate every day, I had to find a way to make it as predictable as possible, and I had to make sure there was a timer that would go off to remind me that my attention was required. Thank goodness I already had a breadmaker. It comes with a dough cycle, so if you have one too, all you do is:

1. Dump in the ingredients*, press start, and in an 1 1/2 hours it has been mixed, kneaded, and has risen twice--and best of all, it beeps!**

2. Turn the breadmaker on for a minute or two. This "punches down" the dough and kneads it into a ball. While that is happening, butter your loaf pan and turn the oven on "Warm".

3. Turn off the breadmachine and dump the dough right into your hand.*** Roll it back and forth between your hands**** until the dough is the length of your pan. Drop the dough into the pan and put it in the oven. Set the timer for 25 minutes.

4. When that beeper goes off, turn the oven to 350 degrees***** and set the timer for 23 minutes.

5. When the final beeper goes off, take your beautiful, fragrant bread and dump it out of the pan onto a cooling rack, turn it right side up, and, viola, homemade bread!******

Have you been asking "Where are the ingredients?!" Relax, they're almost here. But I had to tell you one more thing I do to help me make breadmaking an everyday thing. The first five ingredients I measure out every time I make bread. But I measure out the last four ingredients into a bunch of snack-size ziplock bags and store them in the freezer. Why store them in the freezer? Because both the gluten and the wheat should be stored in the freezer after opening the packages. Since the snack-size bags aren't freezer proof, I keep all the bags (five of 'em, if you were wondering) in a quart-size freezer bag. That way, I can grab one of those bags out of the freezer, dump it on top of the flour and sugar, and I've cut my measuring time almost in half!

My Daily Bread
1 1/3 cup warm water
2 Tablespoons butter
2 cups freshly ground whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 lightly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons potato flakes
2 Tablespoons Vital Wheat Gluten
2 teaspoons yeast

* I do dump them into the pan in the order listed. Really, you just have to make sure the yeast doesn't touch the water if you aren't starting the cycle right away.

** I could bake the bread right in the breadmaker, but I don't like the size of the loaf, and I especially don't like the big hole the paddle leaves in the loaf.

*** I confess, if I wanted to successfully make bread every day, I knew I wouldn't always be able to count on having counter space.

**** Like when you are rolling clay into the shape of a snake.

***** Thanks to Donna Hunter for teaching me that technique! Hey, Donna, is there some rule about how many asterisks in a row you can use? I'm sure I should be using some other symbol by now. :) (For those of you that don't know Donna, she's an English Teacher.)

****** And then I forget to turn off the oven--ask anyone in my family. Try to remember to do that--especially in the summer! :) Good luck!