Bread

There is something about a fresh loaf of bread - it resonates of home and love. Is it because of the effort involved in crafting a loaf of bread from scratch? The warmth of the oven and the earthy smell filling the air as it bakes? I don't know. My mom always made fresh bread - we never had store bought growing up. I can remember the light crunch of the ends, dripping with honey just after it came out of the oven. We'd fight over the crusty ends as kids and I always assumed I'd figure out how to craft my own yummy loaves.

First attempt at bread - still have some work to do

Before Nick had to go gluten free, I'd make bread occasionally. Not enough to get practiced at it, but enough to be dangerous. It was work, but always worth it. As I got busier with life, the effort of making bread fell to the wayside. We didn't eat that much of it before and afterwards... well not worth it for just me.

While I've gotten good at baking muffins and such - the easy gluten free offerings, I haven't had much luck with yeast. I've tried making yeast rolls and cakes a couple of times, but never got the results I wanted. It was a lot of work for experiments, so I often opted to stick with what I know. Time is precious and I rarely had enough of it to spend all day in the kitchen. But this morning, I decided it was time to try. I have fresh yeast and a few different flours - so I made one of the simple, rustic loaves from my cookbook. And while I had better result with the rising then I've had before, there still is work to be done. There's also a lot of research to do - people have gotten good yeast breads before and have shared that information online. I need to look at different starches and proteins to simulate the gluten from the wheat flour. I also need to look at the ratios of flours I'm using to create that perfect, light and crusty loaf. With fall coming, that means cooler temperatures and baking season. This year, I'm going to keep trying until I get my loaf.

Denser then I wanted and not as crusty - but still good