One of the skills I have probably worked the hardest on was to make my own bread. I wasn’t very positive about my ability to learn how to make bread, but I knew I needed to learn how.

I had a bread maker, but I didn’t like how the loaves came out of the bread maker. The crust was very chewy if not hard as a rock. Then I discovered the dough setting. Oh my. I found out that the bread maker could do the dough part, then I could take the dough out, put it in a bread pan, let rise again, and bake the bread. Wonderful!

That only works as long as the bread maker works. Something happened that the coating peeled off the bread maker pan and I didn’t like having the coating in my dough. Somehow, I doubt that was healthy for anyone.

I had dabbled in making the bread from scratch and now the time had come to move beyond dabbling into full-time mastering the bread-making skill. I learned how to make bread using my KitchenAid mixer. That mixer makes life a lot easier! However, I wanted to learn how to make bread from scratch. 

Quite honestly, I was a little scared of the whole process. Making bread from scratch and by hand seemed a little daunting. I put off learning this skill for a few years at least. I didn’t want to knead bread for a long time or struggle to stir the dough. I had already broken enough wooden spoons! 

Enough was enough. I finally found a few recipes (listed below) that I didn’t think sounded too difficult. Sure enough, making bread from scratch was easy! Learning to know when the bread was done and getting the rise times right was my biggest challenge. I learned to thump the bread when it was done cooking and listen for the hollow sound. I learned to get the temperature right in my kitchen for the bread to rise correctly. 

Listen, if I can cook bread from scratch, you can too. This is a skill that is very necessary. When times are tough or the budget is tight, making bread will save you money and fill those bellies. Bread is cheap when you make it at home and tastes so much better than store-bought. 

Another plus is that you can control the ingredients. You can control the sugar, the flour, and the salt. If you need gluten-free, you can make gluten-free. If you have a family that will only eat white bread, you make white bread. The possibilities are endless!

I am a little embarrassed to say that I do not have my own bread recipe! As much as I love making bread, I have never felt the need to develop my own recipe. However, I know a lot of great bloggers that have their own recipes and are more than happy to share them!

Below are some great recipes from fellow bloggers to help you get started baking bread or add some new recipes to your repertoire: 

Which recipe are you trying first?

Thanks for reading,
Erica

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