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One of the things I have not yet done in a serious way is bake bread. I have been fantasising about it, giving the difference in price for commercial breads - the healthy whole grain or at least brown breads are so much more expensive than your run of the mill loaf, I was thinking of starting to bake my own bread, as another way to eliminate white flour products in our house.
I do not own a mix master or any sort, just a food processor, which would not be strong enough or big enough to need bread dough, and the amount of work involved, and the complexity of the proccess detered me from even starting.
Working full time with 2 little ones around the house was enough to deter me from getting into any time consuming cooking and baking, so bread, and my plans for making it were put on the back burner for a while.
I have just read a great no knead sourdough breadrecipe on Mimi Cooks, which from start to finish could take between 24 (if you are very quick) to 36 hours to make.
So I am interested to know - how do you plan this time-wise, and do you back a large batch of bread at the same time and freeze?
Does it take so long because its sourdough (wich is of course so much more yummy…) and how do you become an exclusively home made bread household (plus do the rest of what needs to be done in life)? Or is that asking to much?
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Hi Merry,
I hope you don’t think I’m stalking you, but I left a response for you on my blog and then saw your link come in too and read this blog post.
The book I used when I was letting the food processor do the kneading was “The best bread ever” by Charles Van Over. All of the breads use a food processor for the kneading part. What I remember about this process is that kneading the bread takes something like one minute (and it somehow works!)
I have a link on my blog for another blog called Sourdough Monkey Wrangler. The blog author is the stay at home Dad of two little ones. He bakes all of his own bread. It is a good read because he talks about having a life while the bread ferments.
For me, I don’t eat homemade bread exclusively but I do have a tendency to like fancy bread or healthy bread from the health food store which tends to be expensive. Making my own bread occasionally does save me money (especially since the sourdough keeps me from having to purchase yeast). I should freeze the extras but extra bread that is past it’s prime is perfect for bread crumbs, croutons, bread puddings, stratas, etc. A frugal cook/baker can find many uses.
I am by no means a bread baking expert, just a crazy hobbiest, but if you decide to take a leap into baking and you have questions let me know.
-Mimi
Hi Mimi ! Thanks so much for commenting! of course I don’t think you are stalking me :-) I will check out Sourdough Monkey Wrangler, I do have a full time job, but am self employed and work from home so maybe I will be able to glean some wisdom from his blog.
I will probably dive into bread making soon, maybe starting with regular bread and progressing to sourdough on the second loaf :-)
(I didn’t see the comment on your blog yet, but will check it out now)