Sunday, August 12, 2007

My Secret Weapons

I have this recent need to perfect my bread-making skills. I figure if I'm going to have all of this wheat and flour in my food storage, then I darn well better know how to use it.

My latest experiment (around our house it's pronounced suh-periment) was a white/wheat bread recipe based on the Honey White Bread recipe I posted earlier. The only change I made was to substitute 1 cup of the white flour for wheat flour. It still turned out great - not too heavy. I might actually try 1 1/2 cups next time.

Now comes the part where I reveal my secret weapons. Yes, plural...weaponS.

#1: An electric knife
#2: A bread slicing guide

If you're going to bother making your own bread, you'll want your finished product to look as good as it smells, and these two tools do the trick. You place your beautiful loaf of bread in the guide, plug in your electric knife and slice away. The knife does all the work and slides right through the toughest crust. (It's great for turkey carving too!) You get a perfectly sliced loaf of bread ready to eat or freeze for later. No more sawing and mashing your bread. Wait. Now I'm sounding like an info-mercial. Anyway, now you know my secrets for great looking sliced bread.

note: I have to add that I was DYING to somewhere include the pun "it's the best thing since sliced bread" but I refrained out of respect to my readers.

6 comments:

Robyn said...

That bread is BEAUTIFUL!! I think we need to live closer in the event of a emergency or disaster.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you made that! And then sliced it! I happened to have some really good rasberry jam...do you want to join forces.

Lee and Sharon said...

I will add another favorite of mine for bread making is my Bosch.
Love it.
Also, another good hint is this:
When you cover your dough with saran wrap - spray the one side with Pam and put that side against the dough and it won't stick to it.
Works great.
I just got my sourdough starter last Saturday and made my first sourdough bread. It wasn't quite as sour as I like but next time I will fix that. You just add a couple of Tbls. of cider vinegar to the batter.

Andy said...

wow- sourdough. I'd love to try that one next. I've heard you can make your own starter, but it sounds like you got one from somewhere. How does that work?

Anonymous said...

I disagree with Robyn, the PICTURE is beautiful. I would need to SMELL and then EAT the bread to be entirely convinced of its beauty. You should start posting free samples on your blog.

Andy said...

Brilliant idea, dough boy. Next time I make bread, I'll do a freebie-giveaway to anyone who posts a comment. Of course, I won't ship the bread - you'll have to live near my lovely little neighborhood. (Sorry mom, you'll have to continue making your own!)