Obsessing Over Bread

I love bread so much.

I was saying to my mum today that my house might be messy, but I get a lot done, we're all very happy and we eat really well! 

I've been making a lot more "free formed" bread lately. 

I was getting fed up of making a loaf in the bread maker and only eating 3/4 of it, instead if I make a batch of rolls I can pop what ever isn't eaten into the freezer for another time. Much better use of flour and electric. 

I've also messed about with other types of loaves, my friend was talking about fougasses and I thought they sounded like a great idea to add to the freezer as a lunch that my wife could just grab on her way to work. Each loaf has cheese, salami and sun dried tomatoes in and is then topped with finely chopped rosemary and see salt with an egg glaze. 

I also mixed up a batch of dough the other day and took it on a play date with me, a great way to get kids interested in what they're eating (although mine don't normally need much encouragement!)

My little baker making a loaf

Next year I'm going to make a real effort to grow some more poppies, they are simply my favourite thing to add to bread, as a topping or in the dough, they add such a great, subtle, flavour.

I have some great plans in the extension to make a "prooving cupboard" above the new fireplace (but accessed behind it) so I have somewhere warm to keep my bread while it increases in size. Has anyone else done this?

What's your favourite bread to make?

What ingredients to you like to add?

What's Your Best (or Worst) Bread Making Mistake?

The other day dad and I were working when I saw my wife loading the kids into the car, 

"what's up?" I asked. 

"Something wrong with your bread I need to go buy some for lunch."

I went in and saw my "loaf", I knew what had happened, as I was putting it all in the bread maker one of the girls had asked me a question and I forgot to put the yeast in. 

An unleaven loaf.

Although it was a annoying it was quite funny as I think you could knock someone out with that loaf. It reminded me of the time I forgot to put the paddle in for stirring, so when I came to eat my lunch there was just a bowl of burn flour! 

So it got me wondering if anyone reading his has any stories of bread failing to do what it's meant to or doing something unexpected? I'd love to here your stories! 

Panasonic Bread Maker

My wife got me a bread maker for my birthday last week and she followed the advice of the commentators on this blog and bought me a Panasonic SD- ZB2502. I'd like to say thank you to everyone who commented and left advice on the post where I asked about breadmakers last month, most people recommended a Panasonic and I can confirm I'm really impressed with it! 

Although we've only had it a week, so far every loaf has been amazing. Today's in particular was superb, a sun dried tomato and parmesan mix, only butter was needed for lunch and it was as much as I could do to stop myself from devouring the whole loaf!

I'm looking forward to trying out lots of different recipes in it. Dawn from Doing It For Ourselves has kindly sent me a recipe book for bread makers, so over the next few weeks we'll be trying anything that takes our fancy, from onion breads to making pizza dough. 

Hopefully this will be something we regularly use for a long time. It's stopped us having to have bread in the freezer, we can have fresh bread when ever we want it (not dependant on whether I have time to bake it or not), the bread is cheaper and I get to control what goes into it. Who knows if I buy a grain mill I might even start growing some wheat to bake with! 

Now who has a good recipe for me to try in the machine?