Hello all!

I finally bring you a new food-related post! And this one is about a topic near and dear to my heart: breadmaking.

My breadmaking journey started when I was in high school. As I explored old-fashioned feminity and cooking in the kitchen, I came across some bread recipes. At the time, my mom was making bread by machine, but I wanted to try it by hand. I remember the first recipe that I tried was a French Bread recipe that I had gotten from a high school club.  It grew to the point when I was making bread almost every week for the family. I did fall out of the habit when I went to college, but now that I'm home I do make it sometimes.

With this nearly decade journey, I've tried many different types of bread. And since quarantine has allowed me to make bread more often, I decided to make a post about it!

Let's get started, shall we?


White Bread

This is the most common type of bread, and the one that I would recommend starting with. There are a million recipes out there for this bread. Some use less than 5 ingredients, and others use upwards to 10. I frankly like the recipes that use milk and oil - it makes for a moister bread and a softer one!

I like to use Fannie Farmer and Good Housekeeping for my bread recipes. HERE's a white bread recipe from Fannie Farmer for you to try!


Whole Wheat Bread

The classic brown bread of ages past, it's one of the healthiest breads that is known to mankind. Straight whole wheat bread can be on the stiff side, so you'll often see white flour cut in. Trust me, you'll want to do that! It will make the bread rise better.

HERE is a Whole Wheat bread recipe that is similar to ones that I've made before.



Pumpernickel/Rye Bread

Rye is not in common use in most of America, because of the strong nutty flavor that it presents.

Be careful though - like whole wheat, straight rye loaves are really tough to knead and they're even tougher to rise! Recipes will often combine wheat flour to soften them - in fact, most recipes will use very little rye flour in them.

BUT I have found one that has a majority of rye flour in it! It is HERE.


Oatmeal Bread

Oatmeal is one of my favorite breads to make. Beside the fact that I love oats, it produces a wonderfully textured bread.

My favorite recipe comes from the Fanny Farmer cookbook. An adapted recipe can be founded HERE. Just sub the tablespoon for a third of a cup of honey.


Italian/French Breads

Often called artisan breads, these are the crusty and soft breads that you'll see in a bakery. They include bagettes, foccacia, and other French and Italian breads. My personal favorite is ciabatta, which is an Italian "slipper" bread! You can view a recipe for it HERE, though I use a recipe from the book "How to Make Bread" by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou.



Soft Pretzels

A very distinctive bread of German origin (I think). I do know that they were created by a monk, symbolizing praying hands, at least! My favorite recipe to use is this one HERE. I make a whole-wheat version of this for Lent, and they're really popular with my family!


Sourdough Bread

This is the one type of bread that I have NOT attempted, simply for the reason of the starter. But, for those bakers who want a challenge, I would recommend giving this recipe HERE a try!


Bagels

I mean, a breakfast is not complete without them, right? I'm going to be honest, I had NO IDEA that you could make your own bagels! That is, until I got the book "How to Make Bread" by Emmanuel Hadjiandreou. It included a bagel recipe, which I have made twice now. It is an involved process, but well worth it. HERE is another version of it.


Dessert Breads

Banana bread, cranberry orange bread, blueberry bread, zucchini bread, cinnamon bread....these are the really sweet breads that are often found with tea. We often serve these sorts of breads at Bob Evans, the favorite being the banana bread. I'll include a recipe HERE.


And that concludes the post! As you can see, even an ordinary thing like bread can have lots of varieties!

And now, I'd love to hear from you! Have you tried any of these breads or bread-making in general? What are your favorite bread recipes, or favorite type of bread? 

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine