Bread!

I started making bread when we started keeping the biblical Sabbath and starting Friday evenings by lighting candles and having challa, a braided egg bread. A friend took an entire afternoon to teach me to make and braid this yummy bread.

Then I started to research different types of bread and challa and started making my own bread. It took a while to figure some things out but I finally got it down. I was able to purchase a Kitchen Aide Mixer at a pawn shop for an incredible price and that made making bread so much easier.

God was preparing me. Two months after I got my mixer we discovered that a couple of my kids had some pretty severe wheat allergies. I had to learn how to make bread for them. Making wheat free bread is almost impossible without the mixer. Beating the dough quickly for more than a couple of minutes is key to getting a tall loaf. This top picture is of wheat free bread. One is a lemon greek bread and the other is a french yogurt bread that the kids like for sandwiches. We have a friend who was told that she needed to go on a gluten free diet so I made two loaves of each today, one for us and one for her. Of course we had to test them before we sent them out. They came out beautifully.

I've been making our own sandwich bread off and on for years now. Lately, with the price of bread going up and quality going down, I've been making our own every week. We go through about 4 loaves a week. I also tried to make some hot dog buns this week, but they came out more like hard rolls. The kids have been grabbing them all day and snacking on them. My oldest calls them fun sized.

This is the wheat bread. Unlike store bought, we fight for the ends. I got the recipe from The Urban Homemaker. It is very versatile. I use it for pizza dough, buns, rolls, and fry bread .