Homemade Bread (But I promise, its super easy!)

After months of thinking about it, I sat down a few weeks ago and composed a "bucket list."  Do you have one?  After that movie came out a few years ago, I have had the experience over and over again of friends referring to something on their bucket list and the idea intrigued me.  I've always been a bit of a dreamer so I had fun sitting down and writing a list of things that I want to do or learn before I die.

After finishing my list and reviewing, I found one item that really didn't belong:

#7 - Get over my fear of yeast and master the art of making homemade bread, pizza crust and cinnamon rolls.

I thought to myself, "Jenny, that is not a life-long aspiration.  That should just be your cooking goal for this year."  And so item #7 was removed from my bucket list and I promptly pulled out a book I was given a few years ago called, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  It has been collecting dust on my shelf for quite a while because I haven't been eating bread for about 6 years.  But...  I have this great guy in my life and he has two kids and guess what?  They eat bread!  And I have an office full of co-workers who are also good friends and guess what?  They eat bread!  I have all these people who would be super happy to have me bake them bread.  And since cooking is part of how I say "I care about you" I dove in!

In the last week, I have baked 4 loaves of homemade bread.  No bread-maker.  No loaf pans.  No kneading.  No punching down.  Nada!  About 15 minutes worth of effort and a WHOLE lot of excitement.

I am not going to repeat the recipe/method here.  It is all over the internet and you can find it in their books.  Below is a short video that will give you the gist of it.  In addition to the master recipe, the book is full of variations and explains how to use the master recipe to make homemade pizza dough, pita bread, cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, coffee cake, pastries and more.  They also have another book called Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, that I have on hold at the library.  It talks about how to use this method with whole grains instead of just white flour.

As a side note, they recommend using an oven thermometer, baking stone, pizza peel and broiler pan for hot water/steam.  I don't have any of these things and still got a lovely result just trusting my oven temp, using a cutting board and regular cookie sheet and skipping the steam.  Easy!

So have at it!  Revel in the fragrance of baking bread filling your home! Do a little celebration dance around your kitchen when your first loaf turns out perfectly lovely!  Tell someone, "I love you" and serve them warm homemade bread!