Baking Bread

Let me ask you a question.  Why would a housewife spend $2.00 or more on a loaf of bread in the grocery store when she can just make it at home?  I really have no idea.  What's better: store bought or homemade?  I think you know the answer to that question.  Who doesn't love the smell of homemade bread wafting through their home on a nice wintry (83 degrees!) day?  I must say that I am certainly lucky to have been able to spend the better part of an entire day creating these 5 loaves.  At least I didn't have to watch them the entire time.  Can you imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago when housewives got up early everyday to make a loaf of bread because their growing family would eat an entire loaf everyday?  Can you imagine?  I cannot.  Power to the housewives of centuries ago (yes, we are pretty cool too).  In any case, when I get a hankering, I just have to make bread!  And I just happened to have some freezer jam in the freezer=yummy.

I used an awesome recipe that I got from my friend, Lindsey Broderick, who got it from her mother-in-law, who, I'm sure, got it from her great grandmother from the motherland, but now I'm just making stuff up.  

Here is my rising dough

Here is my dough after I've punched it down: it's art!

Here are my loaves after rising the second time.  They are ready for the oven.

Some of my finished loaves.  When I tasted the bread, I instantly knew that I had forgotten one teeny tiny ingredient.  It's called salt.  That's okay because I thought it still tasted good and so has everyone else who's eaten it (probably about 25 people). 

And here's the trick to freezing your loaves without having freezer burn.  I've tested this method for a loaf in the freezer up to three months but I'm pretty sure it can last for six.  I discovered this method somewhere on the Internet many moons ago.  First, entirely wrap your loaf in plastic wrap.  You can see in my picture that I double wrapped it.  That is to prevent any of the bread "showing" through the wrap. 

Then, cover it with foil, and if necessary, mark the foil with a date.  Then put the bread in a gallon size bag and set it in the freezer.  Enjoy it in a couple months and it will taste like it just came out of the oven!  When I want to eat a loaf, I usually let it sit in the fridge for a day to defrost and then cut into it, but you can cut it frozen or put it in the microwave too, just remember to remove the foil :)

And as a stereotypical Mormon housewife, don't forget to give a loaf away.  If you don't give a loaf away, why did you make it in the first place?