Bread Making Tryouts

I want to share some pictures of the development and evolution of my bread making since I discovered this bread recipe from veganbaking.net.

I love the simplicity of the ingredients and I get such a thrill as I make bread. This is the first time in my life baking bread from scratch. I also realized that my new bread dough can be used for a wide variety of applications such as rolls, pizza crusts, cinnamom rolls (O MY!) and a host of other bread goods. 

Here are pictures of my first three loaves of bread and a brief history of what went wrong.

My First Loaf

With my first loaf, I used some wheat sprouts that have been sitting in the refrigerator. As I was grinding the wheat I thought that the wheat berries were a little too dry. So I added water to my mixture and accidentally added to much. The dough was rather sticky and hard to work with. But it produced my first loaf of bread.  

My First Loaf

 My Second Loaf

My second trial was somewhat better than the first. I didn't add any water to the wheat as it was pureeing. But somehow the dough was dry and easy to work with an exception of the yeast not working just the way I would like. So I baked and created a flat football style bread. It was almost like french bread, but small.

My Third Loaf

By this time I began musing, thinking, and conspiring how to make the perfect loaf. I wonder how the loaf would turn out if I waited two days for the wheat to sprout instead of three or four. So I dumped my wheat sprouts into the processor after the second day of sprouting. I figured the berries would have enough moisture to create the right kind of texture that I was looking for. I followed the directions closely and carefully, still skipping a step or two and adding maple syrup with the yeast as I was in the kneading process. I greased the loaf pan with olive oil and wiped it again. I inserted the growing loaf and waited until it came out of the oven. When it came out, it looked like this:

Wa' la my semi perfect loaf. I said semi because when I had wiped the bread pan again I had removed a lot of the much needed olive oil. So to my chagrin, I lost the whole bottom side of the loaf. I am glad you can't see it in this picture. Whew! 

Through this whole experience I am amazed at the wonder and beauty of taking basic raw materials and creating it into something that is wholesome, good and wonderful. I sometimes feel like a child on Christmas morning just ecstatic and thrilled just before opening his Christmas gifts. Mostly I marvel at the ingenuity and wisdom of God in creating the wheat berry. I can pretty much say that wheat has it all and is a gift to us from Him. It is just thrilling to learn how to use it for my health and  constitution. I give Him all my praise and glory from finding this recipe and current experiences in the kitchen. 

But my adventures with this recipe have just begun and I will post further discoveries and developments on my bread making as I try and try again until I succeed. 

Enjoy cooking 

PS I think you would also enjoy my work station where I process the wheat. 

My Bread Work Station