Day Nine: Baking bread

You may have read on my other blog about the bread maker that mum bought me at a garage sale. Today I finally got around to using it, and it worked. Fresh bread!

I got 10 slices from the bread, that gives only five sandwiches. I will need to do a bit of costing to see if this is a good or bad thing. It would be easy to bake daily as it is foolproof, but it is cost effective? Do you bake your own bread? I would love some advice in this area.

I can see that there will be much trial and error along our journey for the perfect everyday family loaf. This is just the start.

I actually prefer multigrain bread to wholemeal, and prefer rye to multigrain. But wholemeal flour is what I had at hand and it made a nice wholemeal loaf.

There was so much excitement over our 'first ever' loaf of bread that Spunky Monkey (fresh from his bath and wearing pajamas) asked if he could take a slice of bread to the neighbours.

" Mum, don't forget to cut it into four so everyone can try a bit. They are going to love it!"

And they did!





Have have written the recipe here, as much for me as for you. My bread maker is a Panasonic (SD-200) I'm not sure how different they are.

Here is what I did:

Large Wholemeal Loaf

• 1 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (I've kept mine in the freezer)
• 400 grams plain wholemeal flour
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar
• 370 ml water

Put the ingredients of your bread into the bread maker in the order of the ingredients list. Yeast first and water last. There is no need to mix. Press the menu button and select wholewheat. Press the select button and select bake. Press start and walk away. When the beeper beeps to indicate that the bread is ready lift the lid immediately to remove the bread. Remember to wear oven mits and shake the pan several times to remove the bread. Place the bread on a wire rack to cool.

Et voila, fresh bread!

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