I Love The Smell Of Baking Bread In The Morning
Yesterday I baked my first loaf of bread from scratch! It was a wonderful experience from the outset: the smell of the flour, the yeast, mixing it all around, the textile fun of kneeding the dough, and watching it rise when I left it alone for a while. Then of course the smell of it cooking in the oven, and finally the glory of having this odd looking bread staring back at me, but tasting good, and of something new.
I used spelt flour, which is a kind of ancient grain, made good use of in olden times, but not so much these days [until all the recent trends in wheat and gluten allergies or intolerances.. though spelt does contain gluten, it seems many who find wheat intolerable are ok with spelt]. I also used easybake yeast (a dried yeast with re-hydration stuff and ascorbic acid added to it.. this is used mostly in bread-makers as it doesn’t require you to start the yeast working before you begin the recipe.. something I intend on replacing for future attempts, the less extra unnecessary ingredients, the better I think). Other ingredients were a little bit of olive oil, and a little bit of salt, and of course warm water. Once the dough was made and shaped and ready to go in the oven, I sprinkled sesame seeds on the top.
In all, I thought it was very successful. My family each tried it and though they found the taste a little different to the breads they normally eat (which of course are made from wheat rather than spelt, and have various extra things added (preservatives, and the like) which I wished to escape the use of), they did find it quite edible. I enjoyed it a lot, though I appreciate I have a way to go in the art of bread-making, and perhaps I had the chef’s pride going, that which we put love into, we get love out of.
The loaf was polished off today, and I experimented eating it plain, with something on (butter, or jam, or peanut butter), and toasted (today I put natural yoghurt and strawberries on it, but then I have quite a few unorthodox eccentricities in cooking and food preparation and combinations), and all stood up well. The bread sliced nicely (once it cooled after cooking), though I think I could have let it rise more before cooking it to get a taller loaf.
My love for cooking is increasing, as is my love for good, wholesome food. My next cooking projects include more bread (I got some strong wholemeal wheat flour to have a go with), some oat cake type things, biscuits (if anyone knows how to make shortbread without using refined sugar, let me know!), and I’d love to make an apple pie, and some rhubarb crumble. I dare say I’ll document my attempts, and you’ll hear of them here. Until then, I’ll dream of my perfect kitchen, with me in it, creating wonderful things.