garlic

Hello again, It is I, your favourite single 22-year-old male, here to share with you how I make bread. To help you understand why I might be able to do this, I will tell you that in the last two weeks I have made over 12 loaves of bread and have no plans on stopping. It was requested on Twitter that I share my process, so here it goes.

First of all, I use a bread maker, so I suppose it isn’t really making bread but it is a good place to start and mostly fail proof.

When it comes to combining the ingredients there really isn’t any secret, I just throw everything thing in. To be totally honest I hardly measure anything anymore. Yeast, flour, sugar, salt, marg and water. I do store my yeast in the fridge, that being said it also expired in 2011… still works. I also try to use room temperature water.

Once all the ingredients are in the bread maker I set it to the dough cycle and let it go. My primary Black and Decker maker takes 1:30hrs to mix, while my secondary one takes 2:25hrs. Why? I have no clue. I normally stop the second one early and knead it a bit myself.

Now as soon as it is done I make sure I’m there to transfer it to bread tins. When I first take the dough out of the bread maker I kneaded it around for no more than 10 seconds or so in a small bit of flour so it isn’t as sticky.

To let it rise I have tried several things, just sitting out on the stove, in the sun light, under a lamp and right in the stove after it had warmed up to about 175º. I don’t recommend this last one as each time I have done this the dough rises really well but as soon as you take it out it deflates. I’d say in the sun or under a lamp over night is best.

Then baking it is dead simple, heat the oven to 375º and bake for 18 to 20 mins give or take. I don’t normally time it too closely as my internal clock is pretty good for the bread now.

Take the bread out of the oven and remove it from the tin to cool. My bread always comes out very soft and rarely very dense.

If there is something I’d like to improve on it would be getting the dough to rise better and having the end product be a little denser (I think they are related).

White Bread Ingredients:

1TSP – Yeast
2 Cups – Flour
1TSP – Salt
2 TBSP – Sugar
2 TBSP – Margarine or Shortening
3/4 Cup – Water

I have also made, herb bread with fresh herbs I’ve grown, cheese bread and garlic and onion.

I’m getting into the preserves business and this is no joke. My mom is known for her amazing jams and few other preserves. Every year you can find her at the local craft sales around Christmas time and if you are lucky you’ll find her at a garage sale or two.

She has reached such popularity that some people who don’t even know her first name will stop her on the street and try to order more jams.

All year round my mom is collecting the materials and making more jams. She will scour the store for the best deals on the mason jars as well as watch for fruit to come on sale. She has even gotten to the point where she has basically built a celler, which is cool and dark, to keep all that she makes.

So how do I fit in, well first, after seeing her success I just wanted to grow her business into something real, not just found at the craft sales. But with my love of cooking as well, and if you hadn’t of guessed my mother is my biggest mentor, I too wanted to try my had at the preservatives but not the jams and such that she makes. No, I want to make the jelly spreads.

To help me understand the process of jarring stuff my mother helped, well actually she did most of the work as she too had never really made jelly.

We were making Red Pepper and Garlic Jelly.

To make the jelly we had to finely chop up 2-cups of red peppers and 3 cloves of garlic and mix it in with vinegar, sugar and pectin.

The hardest part for me was to remember how long it had to boil and skimming off the foamy bit once it was boiled.

What we did find, was that once the mixture was boiled our recipe instructed us to quickly pour it into the preheated mason jars but when you do this all the peppers float to the top. We found that if you let it cool for a moment or two you have a better chance at evenly dispersing the jelly in the jars.

Now what can I make next.

How I make bread that will blow your mind

White Bread Ingredients:

Red Pepper and Garlic Jelly Adventure