Modern Conviences

I baked some whole wheat frozen rolls today, they are the best! They have seeds in them that give it some crunch, which we also love, along with them looking healthy too.

I started baking bread using the bread machine to knead the dough. Kneading the dough takes time and energy so I started using the bread machine and then shape the dough into loaves or whatever I want the bread to look like. Lately I have been using regular bread pans. (I tried to post a picture but something isn't working correctly because the pictures aren't posting, just get lots of lettering).

I started baking bread way back when I was about 7 or 8 years old. My family baked at least 6 or 7 loaves of bread and at least 1 pan of rolls each week. It was an all day job and really hard work kneading that dough. It took at least an hour for me as a young girl.

I remember about the 2nd or 3rd time I was stirring up the liquid and mixing the flour with the water, the pan had cracks in the bottom and I hit the bottom of the pan with my spoon and the liquid started leaking. If I remember correctly I started to cry because I didn't know what to do to stop the leaking. Mom came around after awhile and helped me fix it. Interesting looking back, who wouldn't know how to fix it? I was inexperienced in cooking.

When our children were very young, before bread machines were invented I would make homemade bread pretty often. I enjoyed taking the time to knead the dough. It was several years after the bread machine started becoming pretty common that I finally decided that it might be fun to use.

The machine I use now we bought at a garage sale at Praise Fellowship for several dollars. I have more then used up what we paid for it. We love the smell of bread baking. I'll include the recipe at the end of this blog, its the best recipe.

My mom used her kitchen stove to bake the bread. It was tricky to keep the oven heated evenly for the entire hour to bake the bread evenly. Summers we used a kerosene stove which was much easier to keep the oven (portable oven that sits on top of the stove), at the correct temperature.

Here's the recipe to use in a bread machine: 1 1/2 cups water (not too hot), 3 tble dry milk, 3 tble honey, 2 tble olive oil, 2 cups white bread flour, 2 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour, 2 tble wheat gluten, 2 tble whole flax seeds, 1 pkg active dry yeast (make sure the yeast does NOT touch the liquid), 2 teas salt. Start the mixer. I always watch it mix up and add more flour carefully if the dough is too sticky. This can be tricky.