Pioneer Staple

I have never been a very good bread maker. I am super impatient and can never wait for the dough to properly rise. Yeast and I are like diplomats trying to get along because it would benefit both of us, but in the end our plans fail. So I'm trying to get better. 

Last week I was housesitting and had endless stretches of time and a friend for company. Perfect conditions for making bread and then being thoroughly enough distracted to not hover parent the dough. 

I've slowly learned that my best breads come out of the three ingredients pictured above: flour, honey, yeast. These, plus water, are really the only things you need to make a great bread. And once you start to get that elusive feel for dough, you won't even have to measure! If you're going to be baking a lot of bread yourself, I also highly recommend you buy a Roll-Pat. It's a silicone based mat that helps keep your dough from sticking. It also expedites the clean-up process, something I am always in need of. 

These are my honey-whole wheat loaves. I didn't expect them to be as beautiful as they were and am very proud of how they turned out. 

I overfilled one of the pans and as it rose the second time exceeded its boundaries a bit. 

In the meantime my friend Lis made rye crumpets, which were wonderful straight out of the pan and slathered with lime marmalade. 

The finished loaf that despite looking ridiculous also looked delicious. I think I ate two out of the three loaves in the space of about three days. I just love toast. And jam. 

My second experiment didn't go as well. There were a couple of overripe bananas that needed to be used so I thought I would try a yeasted banana bread. I used some rye flour and some whole wheat. It didn't quite cook all the way through and the sweetness of the banana didn't quite balance out the sour yeast/rye flavor. I haven't given up on the idea of there being a really great, really easy yeasted banana bread though, so check back in the future. I know I have more bananas waiting for me in the freezer. 

Bread: not as hard as it looks once you pay a little bit of attention to the basics. Just make sure you get a few good loaf pans and some high-quality jam.