Not of the garden...rather, inspired by it.

Bread.
I am challenged in the kitchen. Mostly because of my impatience. My eyes glaze over, my chest gets tight, my breathing quickens if  recipe has more than a handful of ingredients and steps. Even so, I decided to give the whole bread thing a solid effort because of three things.

1. Great British Bake Show- it just looked kind of cool and it was presented as science not chore. 
2. Culinary Reactions book by Simon Field- again, Science equals Fun. I was given this for the holidays
3. Covid. - Stay Safe at Home rules and yes, I got caught up in the whole homemade bread fad. 

I began by making tortillas, I couldn't get to Trader Joe's to get my favorite ones so I tried to make them. I have my mother's old lefse grill and I had some success and gained and lost competency. I'm giving them a rest for the time being. I'll try again soon.

The biggest challenge to joining the trend was sourcing some yeast. I can't believe how hard it was to find. When I finally was able to order some from King Arthur Flour, it came in pounds not small packets. I got two pounds of yeast. I had to be serious. That is a ton of yeast! Actually, just two pounds but it is a major commitment. 

I started by looking up how to store yeast- in a mason jar, in the freezer. Saved you a lot of clicks and ad scrolling. 

Then I looked up recipes on the internet. Turns out there is a lot wrong with recipes shared on the internet. They are all click bait now...and Annoying (with a capital A...I meant that). So I ordered a couple recipe books. 

Then I had to locate flour in a Covid-crazed flourless world. 

LONG story short- I found an excellent YouTube tutorial and followed that recipe exactly,. It turns out that when you follow a recipe exactly...it often turns out.  I also decided to have some credibility, I would need to work towards weight measure so I got myself a little red kitchen scale. It has been enormously helpful.  Eventually, I will get myself a Paul Hollywood or Mary Berry proper British baking book but I'm still a bit of a novice. Still gaining some skills while battling my tendency of attention failure. 

The results have been well received. Husband has eschewed all store purchased bread in favor of my offerings. And he's not just being nice! 

This week I found success and panache by braiding the loaves before they went in the pan. They were nearly too pretty to eat. We were pleasantly surprised by the light texture of this whole wheat bread. Lovely as toast too.