My First Bread

I am keeping a promise to myself. Way back during the summer, I promised myself that this winter I would learn to make bread. You see, here in Arizona during the summer the daytime temps hover around 167 and it’s hard enough to cool the house without the oven going at 475F.

When I bought my food processor a few months ago it came with an instructinal DVD on which Charles Van Over, author of The Best Bread Ever demonstrated how to mix bread dough in the food processor. I immediately went out and bought the book.

His technique is pretty exacting, measuring everything out in grams and making sure the combined temperature of the flour and water are ‘just so’. Once the dough comes together and is the correct temperature, the rest of the process seems very simple.

I bought a couple of baguette pans and a pizza stone, found the bread flour and yeast at the local supermarket, and dived in.

And yes, they tasted as good as they looked. It is amazing that something so beautiful and tasty comes from just flour, water, and a little yeast.