As Promised...

Saturday, I started out with just a coupla goals:

• Open my wheat grinder (That I had for a week, and still not been able to play with...)
• Learn how to use it (Pretty easy if you know what you're doing...)
• Bake bread (Also not too hard, provided you know what you're doing...)
  

First--opening the box and reading the instructions.
Then, time to clean the grinder... which basically meant using it for the first time.
I put the wheat in the hopper:

Turned it on...

And flour went everywhere.



Hmmm.... They'd forgot to mention to make sure the bottom basket was shoved in all the way!
(Or else, I was skimming it too quickly...lol... also a possibility...)

After I cleaned up the mess... It was time for coffee.



And time to make more flour, to make bread.




Now, Bread has 4 essential ingredients: Flour, salt, yeast, and liquid. That's really all you need.
This recipe had more than that, but that's not too important...

So, I'm mixing away, talking to Heather on the phone, having a great time with Mama's 6-quart Professional KitchenAid mixer, and the bread's looking good. Really good.



As you can see, the dough hook's doing its job, and I hardly had to get my hands messy,
with the mixer doing all the work!

And then, I noticed something laying on the counter. The packet of yeast.
(Sigh) So much for not getting into it...



I mixed the yeast with a bit of warm water and honey, poured in the flour to make a sponge, and then hand- kneaded the two doughs together. So-- now you know what to do if this happens to you! --Lol...

A couple of hours later, this is what it looked like:



Shaped:




And ready for the second rising. Except one problem: I had to go to the "Family Fall Birthday" party at my aunt's house. 1 1/2 hours away. And I knew it was gonna be late when I got back.

But, thankfully, I really like to read cookbooks, and I remembered from somewhere:
If you stick bread in the fridge during a rise, it won't kill the yeast, but it will slow it down...

Good news.

So, after I got back at 1 AM, (and Sharon, who'd gotten home an hour earlier than me, had pulled the loaves out of the fridge, ) I stuck them in the oven on the "proof" setting for a little longer:



And then. Time to slash the tops. Which seriously reminds me of popping a balloon:



For obvious reasons. Poor bread.

Thankfully, the oven does wonders:



And the slashing pretty much did it's job.

The final result:

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