The Christening

I decided to let monkey choose what my first baked good to come of the new mixer was. Much to my amazement he was set on cracked wheat bread. My mind was spinning all day... Cracked wheat bread? Why on earth would a man who only eats white wonder bread decide that he wants to make me, who has never made a loaf of bread in my life, bake him cracked wheat bread?! Has he gone nutty?!



I set out to find a recipe, and that by far was the easy part. The next step was trying to figure out how to procure cracked wheat. Not terribly hard, but it still involved going a bit out of my way home from work to stop at a whole foods market. The nearest, and most convenient being the Granary. I gathered my cracked wheat, and decided that if I was there I had might as well get organic flour and do the whole thing the natural way. I walked out quite excited at that point to be making my first loaf of bread.......


I followed the recipe precisely, adding all the ingredients as directed, started up my great new toy, and waited for dough to happen. Dough did not happen.....the stickiest, gooiest, mess i have ever dealt with happened. I should have gotten pictures, but I was so concerned that I had ruined my precious creation, that photos were the furthest thing from my mind. So what did I do? I called the only person in the world who can fix anything,............MOMMY!!!!!! Mom pretty much told me what I already knew, "add a little flour, be patient and don't panic, it's only bread you know." So I did add little flour (OK maybe a lot of flour) and a little patience and faith in my new mixer, and I had, well, a sticky gooey mess. ARGH! I then decided that I was too far into this to give up, at which point I pulled out the trusty olive oil (thanks to Mrs fox's faith in the substance) and I slathered up my hands and my rising bowl and POOF! no more icky sticky.





My next fear, is this stuff really going to rise? If it was that sticky and messy did I fudge the recipe somehow? So I waited, and resisted the insatiable urge to peek under the towel for an entire hour. The timer going off on that oven caused me to erupt from the couch and bolt into the kitchen with such speed the dogs went haywire. Then fear took over, I did not want to lift that towel and find a flat pile of goo. Please Please don't let there be flat bread goo in there!!!! But, alas! There was not goo! There was dough! Real dough, risen and everything. By now my confidence was up, and I knew we were in the home stretch. Only another 40 minutes of rising and 30 minutes of baking, and I would have bread! 70 looonnnnnggg minutes later, I had this.....

Let me tell you, this was probably the most time consuming item I have ever decided to make, but holy crap was it worth it. I cannot remember when I have ever had bread that tasted so divine. The smell that was coming out of my oven was unbelievable! I don't think I have ever felt more at home in the 3 years we have lived at this house until now. There is just something about baking that makes you feel so at home. The two loaves have only been out of the oven for maybe an hour, and we are already down a half a loaf. one or the other of us keeps running in the kitchen to butter another piece of this divine creation of kitchenaid mixer mastery. At this rate I will be baking bread again by Thursday.


I have to say my thanks go out to my dearest sister Mrs Fox for teaching me that ANYTHING is possible with a bit of olive oil. My Mother for always knowing what to say, and lastly, my dear Grease monkey for deciding he wanted cracked wheat bread for the first trial run of the mixer. (though I am still at a loss as to how someone who won't eat honey wheat bread would want anything containing cracked wheat.) As I will be going to bed tonight with a happy tummy full of tasty warm fresh homemade bread.