So it has been a very long time since I baked bread. My old toy‘s motor died in 2007 or early 2008 (after 3 years of weekly bread baking). Despite looking around for a handyman or an appliance repairer, we were unable to find one who would work on my poor mixer. Apparently, people no longer repair small appliances, they just go out and buy a new one! And then we were distracted by the arrival of a certain cantankerous addition to our home, and then another. So there was never any time to actually bake bread.
But now that the baby is two years old, and his sister is a toastivore, we decided it was time to go back to baking our own bread. And, since we couldn’t get the old mixer fixed (I am still sad about that), we got a replacement for it.
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb01.jpg:Unpacking the box together:center:0]]
* Mouse over the pictures for captions
So the new machine arrived on a Saturday, we unpacked it on Sunday morning, threw the parts in the dishwasher for a nice cleanse, and started baking that afternoon! The first bread: Raisin-orange Bread.
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb02.jpg:Everybody loves to knead bread:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb03.jpg:Adik handles the dough:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb04.jpg:Rolling into logs:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb05.jpg:Adik is unhappy he can’t keep playing with the dough:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb06.jpg:Let’s braid the logs:center:0]]
This was Yaya’s idea. Although the recipe calls for a regular loaf pan, Yaya wanted to braid the bread. 🙂
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb07.jpg:Happy with her handiwork:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb08.jpg:After rising:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb09.jpg:Baked!:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb10.jpg:Glazed:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb11.jpg:With a fork for perspective:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb12.jpg:Sliced:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb13.jpg:Close up:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb14.jpg:Toasted with butter (yum!):center:0]]
Now, although Yaya loved baking this bread, she refused to eat it. Adik loved it. It is of course, an old favorite that even Opah and Atok got to try.
After we did this, we told Yaya she had to start eating our home baked bread. She said that she would if it tasted and looked like her favorite bread from Dorothy Lane Markets, the french boule. So here was our first attempt at baking a french boule-esque bread: Pain Italien.
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb15.jpg:A watched mixer does still mix:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb16.jpg:After the second rising:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb17.jpg:After the third rising, slashed and brushed with water:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb18.jpg:Yaya is super excited about the new bread!:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb19.jpg:Yaya pokes the bread:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb20.jpg:Sliced:center:0]]
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb21.jpg:Umm…is that brown in color?:center:0]]
This is supposed to be a plain white bread, but since we used molasses as the sugar component, it colored the bread brown. However, it still tasted like a regular white bread. Yaya started putting up a fuss about eating a bread that was brown instead of white, but after Vin told her that he was going to trade her in for a child that ate normal food, she tried it and then gobbled up the rest of it:
[[image:2014_breadjanfeb22.jpg:Toastivore at work:center:0]]
So that is our bread story! Wish us luck experimenting with recipes and perhaps getting Yaya to try other foods if we add it into the bread. Whee! 🙂
