Further adventures in baking land ......

So, yesterday I decided it was time to try and bake bread. We have long lamented the fact that we can't find a decent loaf of bread over here (seriously - wtf is the obsession with sour dough?!?!?!), and as my beloved Philippa came with a dough hook I was finally out of excuses not to try.



Now, I'm usually a wholegrain kind of girl, but my little Kitchen Aid recipe book suggested a simple white easy rise loaf for beginners so that's what I went with. It was a wonderfully simple recipe - dump stuff in mixer and ..... errrr ....... mix! The recipe made two loaves, but i felt there was too much dough for the mixer and poor Philippa seemed to be struggling.








I persevered with the kneading until I started to fear for my little mixer's well being, then shaped the dough into loaves and popped them in the fridge to rest and rise.









I had little faith when I popped the first loaf in the oven, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was a little dense, though I'm not sure if that was how it was supposed to be or if further kneading would have helped, but it was still tasty with a nice crunchy crust and made a suitable accompaniment to last night's soup.





As first attempts go I felt it could have been a lot worse, and there is something unbelievably satisfying about eating your own homemade bread!! Am I about to stop buying shop made bread? Well, probably not! But I'm definitely looking forward to having another go!! :-)