Ex-pat Newlyweds

My housewifing has been taken to another level. Having all the necessary ingredients already in stock in my kitchen (one sign of my housewife status), I decided I was going to bake bread.

I’ve been baking a lot since that first weekend with the cinnamon buns. Last weekend, we had a hodge podge of Germans and Canadians over at our house, for which we (…this is a generous we…) made cinnamon buns, pizza (with the dough from scratch), a citrus salad and numerous pots of coffee. It was a success and all the food was gone by the time our many guests left — each full and caffeinated.

Muffins I can do without a recipe. I’ve mastered the flakey crust that holds gooey fruit fillings. My in-laws have had the joy of being my guinea pigs for many desserts, and never complained once. Eventually, dessert was my given contribution for family dinners and I was always happy to do it. Baking is my happy place.

But there was one oven-bound dough that intimidated me: Bread. Pizza bases, ok — but those hardly counted as bread for me… pizza bases get covered up with stuff. Bread, all on its own, was something I always wanted to get into, but the bread aisle at the grocery store was just too easy.

So, fuelled by a marathon of Top Chef, I decided I was going to tackle the bread. Missing sourdough, I looked into making that, but you need something called a sourdough starter, and wuickly rethought my plan. I turned to Jamie (Oliver), and with his idiot-proof bread recipe, I started mixing and kneading.

Three hours later (that includes rising time for the dough), I bit into my first piece of made-at-my-homemade bread.

I think I’m going to need more yeast.