breadmaking

Bread. Where shall we begin? Even though I rarely eat bread, our family of 5 seems to go through a couple of loaves of bread a week. I find it slightly annoying, but still annoying to 'duck' into the shops during the week just to buy more bread.  Here, we have now learnt to purchase an extra loaf and pop it in the freezer.  Personally, I dislike the frozen stuff as well.  However, in our house, the frozen bread literally does not stay frozen for more than two days.  Our Australian climate thaws most things rather quickly and it is almost as good as the 'freshly baked' stuff you buy in the shops (Ahem - well sort of).  That was until I decided to reach into the depths of my pantry and retrieve...the bread maker.  Yes, a huge appliance hidden in the depths of my cupboard...And I wondered...

Surely the thing still worked?
Surely this is a cheaper and possibly more cost-effective way to supplement our regular, store bought cased in plastic, loaf? 
Maybe, just maybe, if this worked we could stretch it until the weekend grocery shop?

I eagerly rushed to the shops to buy the flour (a whole 12kgs of the stuff).  Upon my return I realised - it pays to read the instruction manual.  I forgot the powdered milk.  I also wondered after I ripped open the bag why there were grainy bits in the flour bag - Oh that's right, upon reading the front of the bag again - I realised I had bought 12kgs of MULIT-GRAIN which is great as long as everyone eats multi-grain!  Yes, it was a day of complete stuff ups. 

To cut a very long story short; my multigrain bread turned out despite not having it on the right setting, having no powdered milk and waiting for hours for the bread to make.  Thankfully, it turned out and it was delicious! 

My new found (although rather frustrating) relationship prompted me to head back to the shops to find some white flour for bread making.  Yes, the most essential ingredient that all the family could enjoy. 
Success again!

Although I used the powdered milk, I omitted the salt and it still tasted like bread to me only 100 times better than the bought stuff.

It costs well under 2 dollars for a home made loaf with the added bonus that you can adjust your ingredients e.g. less to no salt/sugar and no preservatives.   

 

 

It might be considered 'cheating' using a machine to bake bread and if I was given more time in my day, I would love to be better at making bread with my own hands, however, using a bread maker means I can set it up and literally walk away, so for now, it works for me.  Despite the initial setbacks (my own doing), I am encouraged to keep using the bread maker and I am looking forward to experimenting further. 

Any ideas what to do with all that multigrain flour?

xo