"Homemade" Bread

(FYI: This post, like the one before, is not about our Farm Share; again I diverge, but only to share the love we feel for fresh-baked bread.)

My husband and I thoroughly enjoy the convection oven bread maker we received as a wedding gift.  I can't say this bread is homemade because we are in no way kneading the dough or giving the bread the love I feel most bakers do when making a beautiful loaf of bread.  However, we do make a loaf about once a week with all-natural ingredients and no additives.

I wasn't sure how much we would use it, but since we got it we have yet to buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store.  We use it consistently to make whole wheat bread (for sandwiches and such), but you can do so much more with it.  Suffice it to say, there is more bread making of all different kinds in our future.

After the initial investment of buying the bread maker, it is so cheap and easy to make bread.  We buy bags of flour at a time and with a few extra ingredients we get fresh bread that contains no preservatives every week at a minimal cost (buying loaves like this from a bakery or specialty grocery store would run at least $4/loaf.  Making it yourself is pennies!)

You can find a bread maker at Bed Bath & Beyond or any specialty cooking store.  The one we have is from Cuisinart.

Here is an example of what you would need to make one loaf of honey whole wheat bread.  Keep in mid that once you buy these ingredients, the supplies make A LOT of loaves of bread:

~ 1 c. warm water
3 tbs. honey
1/3 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 1/2 c. bread flour
2 tbs. butter
1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast