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Do yourself a favour and start baking your own bread! Grab a factory made loaf off your supermarket shelf and take a look at the ingredient list. It's miles long and contains stuff that you wouldn't normally associate with food. The bread I managed to rustle up had 4 ingredients: Flour, water, yeast and salt. I'm not sure about you, but I'm picking homemade bread over store bought ones any day!
Bread making has always been seen as an extremely tedious process in my house. Probably because of all that kneading and mixing and resting for hours...it can be a whopping 6 hours before you're buttering yourself a slice of freshly made bread!
But it seems to me that bread was the reason why Man started baking. In the old days, sugar was a premium, top of the range product which was on par or maybe even more expensive than spices! Cakes would have been a luxury only the rich could afford. And however which way you look at it, cakes are meant to be admired before they're eaten. Kinda feels like they were created to impress instead of feed.
Breads on the other hand, come from a long long long way back in history. Its origins can be traced as far back in time as Ancient Egypt! When you look at a loaf of bread, chances are, you're not going to be mightily impressed. It's usually in a boring shape with a dark brown crust and nothing much else to it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and once cut, each loaf unleashes its unique, often mellow, flavour and aroma based on the flour it was made from.
I think the sole purpose of a loaf is to fill hungry bellies. Bellies that possibly could not afford the finer things in life like sugary, showy cakes. Wheat flour, salt, water and yeast (or sourdough starter) - throw them in a bowl, mix them, knead it, rest it, bang it in the oven and there's your breakfast/lunch/dinner. Bread is pretty impossibly versatile!
So when my first ever loaf of bread came out of the oven, I couldn't help but feel like I've finally understood the feelings of those early bakers who baked bread as a means of keeping starvation at bay. It's weird - I know!
I managed 3 types of bread and each was an absolute joy! A basic simple white bread boule, a wholemeal loaf and a couple of pizzas. The learning curve for each wasn't too steep but it does take a fair bit of patience to learn the kneading techniques and the intricacies of how the yeast works its magic in concert with the other ingredients. I'm still learning!
I was lucky enough to have a great bread baking book on hand which I bought months ago but only just picked out from the back of my cupboard! I'm no bread expert by any means but I have to say I felt extremely happy when I cut into the loaves to unearth a soft, spongy center surrounded by a crisp and firm crust. It just made me want to bake more and more bread!
The pizzas were awesome as well and were a hit with my family which is what keeps me going!
Brilliant Bread by James Morton: extremely informative, well thought out and loaded with bread making nuggets of information for the newbies. Get it please!
