Let's Make Bread

It's such a good thing that I have overcome my fear of making bread. Clark recently read a book called Let's Make Bread and kept asking if we could make bread just like they did in the book. I love creating text-to-self connections, so I readily agreed! We used our favorite french bread recipe found here. 

He had to read the recipe to make sure we had all of the ingredients and to tell me what step we were on.

The boys were amazed at the power of the Kitchen Aid. Ha!

Flour power

Clark's favorite part - punching the dough!

Shaping the loaf

The best smelling loaves of bread

Next we are going to read the book called Let's Make Cookies! Yay!!

Cinnamon Swirl Bread and Water Parks

I am branching out and taking risks with my MAD bread making skills! We had planned an overnighter at an indoor water park hotel and I thought this Cinnamon Swirl Bread would be perfect for a late night or early morning snack. 

I WAS RIGHT!!!

It's absolutely delicious!

I used this recipe from The Idea Room, but I had to tweak it a little since I didn't have rapid rise yeast.

Here are my revisions (based on some super advice from a bread guru)...

I decreased the milk to 1 1/4 cups.
Then I dissolved 3 tsp. of active dry yeast in 1/4 cup warm water

She said that you want to use the same amount of liquid, but you'd need water to dissolve the yeast. Very smart.

(P.S. I didn't heat the milk on the stove top either. I just warmed it in the micro at 45 second intervals until I thought it felt right)

You may have to adjust the rise times a little, but I didn't really. It came out beautifully except that it sort of looks like the elephant man version of cinnamon swirl bread. It was ginormous! Next time I'd like to try to use longer pan from IKEA that The Idea Room mentions.

Here's a little snapshot of the Water Park Weekend too...

A little bit of sunshine on the COLDEST day of the year so far!

These Old Bones

Guess what?! I'm over at Keeping it Simple today. Isn't that the coolest? I'm beyond excited.

Go check out how to spook up your Sunday dinner with These Old Bones (aka: breadsticks). They are really easy and so tasty! Here's the link straight to my post.

 See you over at Keeping It Simple!

Adventures in Breadmaking

Making bread terrifies me.

I think it's the yeast. It's so weird.

But what's the worst that could happen, right? We just waste some flour...that's it.

OR...I could quite possibly be the BEST BREADMAKER EVER!!!

Avanti's Sweet French Bread
1 1/2 Tbsp. yeast
2 Tbsp. oil
1 Tbsp. salt
3 cups water
3 eggs
1 2/4 cups sugar
10 cups flour

Soften yeast in water. Add remaining ingredients. Mix and let rise until double, about 1 hour. Punch down. Shape into loaves and let rise again. Bake 20 mintues at 350 degrees. Makes 3 large loaves.

YUM-O! Next time I'll try to fancy it up a bit, but for my first time I was pretty nervous doing just this.

Earlier this month, I taught a lesson at church about being a lifelong learner and the importance of education even though most of us have long ago left the classroom. Well, I admitted my fear of breadmaking and my desire to master the skill. On Wednesday of that same week, a lady from church called me and asked if I wanted a private breadmaking lesson...ummm....of course!!! She came over and we made this awesome French bread. All three loaves were gone within days. It was so good. And now I am a little bit more confident in my breadmaking abilities!