Yumm...Fresh Bread Baking in the Oven!

After college, I began to enjoy cooking! I don't know if it was the whole "fend for yourself" attitude since I was living on my own or if it was the whole "need to lose all of your beer drinking weight from college" attitude that made me start to love cooking. Whatever it was, I love to cook.

I received the Kitchen Aid mixer for my bridal shower and have not even begun to experience its full potential. Besides from using it for the basics such as mixing cake, cookies or cupcake recipes, I have realized that it can do a hell of alot more. I decided it was time for me to learn how to make fresh bread. I've always been scared of making bread...something to do with the whole yeast thing. Perhaps it was the time when my mom tried to make Portuguese sweet bread and she killed the yeast, so the bread never rose that scared me away from trying to make bread. Because if my mom couldn't make it...what makes me think that I could ever make it? So today was the day that I encountered this challenge! I decided to use the basic white bread recipe found in my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer user guide. I had all the ingredients on hand...yes, even the yeast (I had purchased this element a couple of weeks back in anticipation of making bread one day). I was feeling good and ready, up for the long haul ahead of me, since after reading through the recipe, it appears that I would have to wait several hours for the bread to set and rise with this whole yeast thing.

Got my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer out, attached the dough hook (nifty little gadget, I tell you) and away we went.


Once all the ingredients were mixed in our fabulous gadget here, I was instructed to cover it and let it sit for 20 minutes in order for the dough to ferment. This picture illustrates the fermentation. The dough basically doubled in size which demonstrated that the yeast was working...YEAH!!

After seperating the dough into two pieces, I was then insrtucted to roll each of them out flat with a rolling pin and then in turn, roll them (like a jelly roll) and tuck loose ends under. I then placed them in greased loaf pans and brushed them with oil. Then they were placed in refigerator for 4 hours. The instructions mentioned to leave them in the fridge between 2-12 hours.


At this point, I was already getting excited for the outcome!
And here, ladies and gentlemen, are my final products!! Not bad, I must say for a first timer!




Yummy fresh bread!! Reminds me of those breads that you get at Panera or specialty bakeries. I'm very impressed with myself but I owe it all to my Kitchen Aid mixer! I couldn't have done it without my mixer!