Making bread at home becomes easy - just like everything else

One thing I have found is:  

Everything is hard the first few times you do it.  Then it becomes easy.

It was the same with getting used to using my breadmaker instead of just buying bread.  Although it took only five minutes a day to throw the ingredients in the breadmaker, at first there was a real investment of energy as I got the right measuring cups and ingredients ready, and actually read enough of the manual to figure out how to operate the breadmaker.  But that investment has paid off, since now I can't believe it took discipline to use a breadmaker at first (instead of buying bread).

After I got used to the routine of using a breadmaker, and in fact used it so often (and sometimes forgetting things like THE WATER), it broke after about a year.  But I also at that time visited my family in North America, and my Dad showed me how to make no-knead bread - as they now make all their bread this way.  Once more, it took awhile toget set up with all the things I needed, and to truly understand the process.  Now making no-knead bread is easy.  (And using the breadmaker - I've since gotten it fixed - is just like falling off a log...)

Don't get me wrong - regular bread is easy too - kneading is quite therapeutic.  And I love whipping up pizza dough with my hands, when I am in the mood for it.  But if you have to work too, as we usually too nowadays, and you still want to make bread at home, it's good to have an easy method so that you actually can realistically accomplish it.

Easy bread links on this blog:

How to make crusty white no-knead bread (artisan bread) in five minutes
How to make100% whole wheat no-knead bread (brown bread) in five minutes
How to make buns (bread rolls) easily at home using a breadmaker

How to Make Buns (Bread-Rolls) At Home Easily Using a Breadmaker (avoid the plastic bags from buying them in a grocery store)

I use a breadmaker to make our daily bread - just to avoid the millions of plastic bags. BUT in doing so, we often have the smell of fresh bread in our home, can add cool ingredients to the bread. Also, we know what we are eating.

So that's the bread - BUT my husband also likes to get those really fluffy white buns with sesame seeds on the top, which happen to be sold in non-recyclable clear plastic bags. Living sustainably shouldn't have to mean losing out on things like fluffy buns - at least, sacrificing all the time will mean that my family will revolt. So, I schemed a way to regularly have buns without all the plastic. And a realistically easy way as well - breadmakers take all the time out of kneading the bread and waiting for it to rise - something you do twice with bread-rolls.



You will need:
4 tsp yeast
450g white flour (I replace 25g with this with wheat germ, makes it healthier)
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp milk powder
4 tbsp butter (or margarine)
1.5 tsp sugar
270mL water
Permanent items:
1 good quality breadmaker (It's worth getting good tools, trust me.)
1 scale

Do this:

Measure ingredients and throw them in the breadmaker metal tin. (Make sure you have the kneading blade in first - I have actually forgotten this a few times after cleaning it.)

Set your breadmaker on the appropriate "dough" mode. My dough mode takes 2 hours and 20 minutes.

After the dough is done, it will have risen in the doughmaker. Either right away or within a couple of hours, throw some flour onto a surface, and throw the dough onto it. Skwoosh it down, making sure the flour touches the sticky dough before your hands. Knead it and punch it down and cut off bits with a plastic spatula, or with your hands, and make little balls. I place them into a greased pan with sides so they can rise up contained, not just splatting out in every direction, similar to the ones you buy bagged at the store. I fit eight balls into each large bread loaf tin.

Then you cover them with either a plastic bag you are trying to get rid of, which is greased, or you could use tin foil - or paper - something so that the balls don't dry out as they are rising again. Let them rise to double the size (could be half an hour, or more).

Then you brush beaten egg on the tops, and throw some sesame seeds all over them (the egg will stick them on), and bake them. They will bake quickly - 180 degrees Celsius for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown.

They will be just as good, or better than those "boughten" rolls!

Breadmaker to avoid all the plastic bags

Another implementation I have been waiting a LONG time for, and is really fabulous is a breadmaker. Due to new home syndrome and unexpected blessing of some extra funds at this time, we bought one. Not only does it provide me the structure for baking bread (I used to make it by hand but I no longer have time since I work), and I can experiment with making all different kinds of bread and putting healthy ingredients in (seeds, whole grains) I CAN NOW AVOID the horrible packaging from buying bread.

We have been buying bread for a few years now. My novel idea was to get a breadmaker, and flour in bulk, and totally avoid the plastic bags. I met a lovely friend here already who told me of a local wholesale supplier of flour (MyBreadMix). Yay! I have also been saving plastic bread bags from my years in sin. And now I have many to use for the bread I make. My parents made bread using a very large, good quality food processor with a "dough hook". Memories of their drawer full of plastic bread bags, crumbs and all, and reusing them over and over again...

It's just a really good solution if you are living in the real world and want to make bread. Realistically, in the sped up world, I would never have made bread even with a food processor and dough hook. It takes about 5 minutes to throw the ingredients in, and while it is a pain to do it as frequently as we need bread, it is fun - and I do enjoy the feeling of avoiding all those plastic bags.