13 Jan 2010

baking bread

It was a hot day last Friday. I checked on iGoogle, and it said Melbourne was 34 degrees Celsius. As I am a person who hates the heat, I don't dare bake anything on hot days, as the oven makes the house more hotter. Friday was an exception. I wanted to bake bread and use the heat to make the dough rise.

I flicked through "Reader's Digest Bake with Love", a thick recipe book I received from Eira last year for my 16th birthday. I bookmarked about 15 recipes, but I never made anything from it until Friday because everything seemed so hard. That Friday I was determined to bake a loaf of bread and I did.

I halved the recipe because this was my first time baking bread and luckily I did because it turned out to be very big! I don't want to imagine how much bread I'll have if i didn't.

Turns out baking bread wasn't so hard. It just takes a long time for the dough to rise. The bread turned out a bit dry and hard because I probably over kneaded it because I forgot to add an ingredient (how shameful!) and slightly over baked it. But it's still edible and I like it toasted with jam or cream cheese.

I'm going to attempt bake another type of bread from the same recipe book and hopefully it's softer that this one.

Remember this book Eira? Thanks again! :)