Bread making lessons I am learning.

Well, my goal today is to make some lighter yeasty bread than the recipe with my breadmaker calls for.  So I got out my trusty Joy of Cooking - the blue one.  The new one is awful.  I decided to use a basic recipe for two loaves of bread as the one for three was too large for my bread maker.  Well, the ingredients fit for two loaves, but after rising I would probably have a huge mess and a non-functioning bread maker:-(  I hadn't added the yeast mixture yet, so I scooped out all the flour down to the milk mixture.  Let that cool down to 85 degrees (didn't see that step even after reading three times).  So I popped it and a kitchen thermometer (best investment ever for a kitchen device after the bread maker) in my fridge.  Took about thirty minutes to cool down after scalding it.  Then I had to add the milk to the yeast and start stirring in flour, manually.  Then yep, you guessed it, I had to knead it.  Hopefully I did it long enough.  My hands were killing me.  Now it's raising for two hours before I have to deal with it again.  Now I know to halve that recipe and do it in the bread maker next time.  I am using all purpose flour as the loaves with the "bread machine" flour has so much gluten, it's way more dense than I like.  John said he could understand now how people lived off of bread and water in the past as it's super filling.  Good but just not as tasty as what I remember Grandma Wilson (Dad's mom) made.  I don't think they worried about things like bleached vs. unbleached flour back then.  So I used regular old all pupose flour like the recipe called for.  Now to go clean up my mess and start a recipe for cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting.  Mom and Dad are particularly anxious to try those!

I don't know what's gotten into me lately but I have been a bread making fool.  So far I have finished twelve loaves.  Today will be the equivalent of four more.  Biologically both my birth Mom and half-brother Loris were both big into breadmaking or so I have been told.  So maybe it's been "bred" into me. . . Har, har!

Boy the yeast from that rising dough sure smells good.  Y'all have a good day.