Thursday, August 20, 2009

Baking

A little while ago on the Daily Headspa blog I caught this great video about baking bread and it inspired me to just get in there and have a go at baking some myself!
I love the smell of yeast doing it's thing and the whole chemistry and living dynamic stuff about bread really turns me on!
So as part as my mission to 'Become Free' I decided a 'Free Man' bakes his own bread... and being a pizza lover this principal should equally apply to that delightful food also!

I am not seeking perfection with this and freedom will come gradually I know so before I show you my results I'll answer a few of the questions I would ask of someone who I might suspect of claiming righteousness by publicizing his one useful act!

  • No I did not grow the wheat, harvest it or mill it myself
  • Yes I did buy my ingredients from the dreaded (No free advertising here you multinational destroyer of communities and thieves of farmers profit) Supermarket.
  • No I did not use a wood fired oven
  • Yes I did use plain flower, yeast, water, sugar, salt, and olive oil.... No I did not squeeze the olives personally.
  • Yes I did kneed the dough with my own two hands.

So now that we've got that over with here are my results using mostly white flour (It's what we had in the cupboard) and a little wholemeal.

white loaf 2
(White bread - my second attempt at bread)

white loaf 1
(White bread - great tasting bread, delicious crust no yeasty smell)


Pizza
(Vegetable and feta Pizza)

If you think the white bread looks a bit boring, unhealthy and doughy I agree! I'll try to make my future efforts a little more interesting. One step at a time.
I would like to add, for those of you who are contemplating quitting video games and dumping your telly... Just Do It! All I've done is bake a bit of bread and already I'm feeling liberated!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Well done! I love baking and miss it on my travels.