Making bread

My fiance loves bread. He gets all dreamy-eyed when we talk about delicious crusty bread from our local bread shop. Unfortunately, good, homemade bread can get expensive to buy every week. So for a short while, I made bread at home. Then I got lazy and didn't want to make bread anymore. The thing is, we eat a lot of bread when it's good, which means one loaf will last a week. That means I have to spend precious down-time making bread every weekend! Chores are only fun when they're novel, then they just become chores. Lol!

So one way to get around making bread every weekend is to make a big batch of dough and freeze it after the first rise. Punch down the dough and divide into small portions for fast future thawing. Wrap the portions in plastic wrap and place in freezer. When you want to use it, just unwrap it and leave it on the counter, where it will thaw and go through its second rise. At this point, you can bake it, or punch it down and let it rise one last time before placing in the oven. Tipnut.com suggests doubling the amount of yeast if you're planning to freeze the dough.

As for bread recipes to use, there are plenty floating around on the internet. I haven't tried a lot of different recipes, but I have found a pretty decent whole wheat bread recipe here. Some wheat bread recipes use half whole wheat flour and half white flour because 100% whole wheat tends to make a very dense, chewy bread. It's also very difficult, if not impossible to get a good crust. In the recipe I use, I replace a few tablespoons of flour with vital wheat gluten, which is also used to make seitan. The vital wheat gluten helps give the bread a spongier, lighter texture. Sometimes, I'll add a few shakes of ground ginger as well. When it comes time to bake, I'll arrange two racks close together in the middle of the oven and place a tray of water on the bottom rack. Before placing the bread in the oven, I'll brush the surface with cold water. During the baking process, I might have to refill the tray of water, in which case, I'll brush the surface of the bread again. This helps the bread form a crunchier crust, though it works best with white bread recipes. For whole wheat recipes, the crust is only crisp when it first cools from the oven, and even then, it's not as crisp as with a white bread recipe.

The result of my efforts is a really good loaf of sandwich bread. Even though the crust isn't crusty, the insides are soft and delicious! This is a bread for everday use. On those days when we want something a little more decadent, I'll consider making a crusty white bread. I've been eyeing the no-knead bread craze for a loooong time now - and I'm not kidding when I say "craze." Lol! Check out the no-knead recipe here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html