Baking Magic
Posted 2014.10.28 18.40 in Pointless Blather byI’ve started making my own bread again.
It was at least 15 years ago when I first started making bread. Back then I didn’t have a machine for it. The machines existed but they seemed frivolous and expensive.
Eventually I did get a machine, 2 or 3 years ago. Made bread for a few months, then gradually stopped again.
Then about 2 weeks ago, I got the idea to try it again.
It’s one of those lessons I keep forgetting. Fresh, home-made bread is wonderful.
The machine is handy. There’s convenience to it. A lot less messy. And compared to store-bought factory made bread, bread machine bread is pretty darn good.
But doing it entirely by hand… it’s magical as well as wonderful.
I hate messes, I hate cleaning up, and I hate getting my hands dirty. But for scratch-made bread, it’s worth it. It really is.
Home-made bread fills me with joy.
It also feels like a kind of magic.
I mean how did they figure it all out? Grind the wheat into flour… mix it into rubbery dough. The yeast thing was nature’s doing, and probably quite hit-or-miss at first. Then the rising, the kneading, more rising, more kneading. Then baking. Then eating!
I just made a loaf of honey-bread. It’s just bread with honey added. Super simple. Water, salt, flour, butter, yeast, and honey. It’s all light and poofy and as soon as it was cool enough to touch, I couldn’t resist cutting off a piece to try it.
I don’t really have a point I guess. I just love making bread, it feels like a kind of kitchen magic, and I wanted to share my feeling of wonder.