Baking Bread...

There's something satisfying about it...

My cousin called me the other day from Ireland.

She mentioned that she'd just finished baking bread.

I (stupidly) asked... "with a bread machine?"

"Bread machine?? No Man!" was the very Jamaican accented reply.

I couldn't understand how she did it, she's got 3 very active boys and a full time job as 'something in architecture'... dunno exactly, but buildings become very interesting and artistic when she speaks about them.

Anyway,

turns out she bakes 6 loaves of bread every Sunday, for her family.

No buying bread, no bread machine, just good old fashion kneading by hand, every week...

Respect....

So I asked her to give me the recipe...

"Recipe?? was the very Jamaican accented reply...

"There's no recipe, love, you just bake it as is family tradition...."

Now I must say, my dad and my sisters used to bake bread...

But I hadn't.

The whole kneading thing put me off.

I'd tried it an odd time after I'd left home, but it didn't 'double in size' no matter how long I left it to rise, was rock hard and, well, not worth repeating.

So I asked her to pass on this tradition verbally so I could give it a try.

Off by heart she passed on the ingredients, amounts and how to do it...

Ok...

So I looked at the piece of paper with the notes I jotted down, for a few days,

then brought myself to buy the ingredients so I could bake it with Easter...

Didn't....

And so, tonight, after putting D to bed, and kissing my hubby goodnight (he needs to wake at 3 am, poor thing) I went into the kitchen, and started to bake...

Kneading the flour into dough is a very intense process!

The amount of flour in my bowl was daunting.. (my bowl was way too small and I'd used my biggest) so I split the dry ingredients, then added the 'luke warm' water and just pushed my hands in the gooey sticky stuff, trusting that at some point it would stop sticking to my hands and actually start looking like something I could knead.

Thank God the structure changed, and I was able to knead it on the table.

It was a great feeling! Really working the dough, and letting your mind drift while your busy.

It was fun! and not half as difficult as I remembered.

So now I'm gonna let it rise over night (I vaguely remember someone saying that leaving it that long is no problem).

Tomorrow I hope it has risen and then I'll knead it again and bake it.

I really hope it tastes ok... but even if it doesn't,

I'll soon try again, till I get it right.... the experience was too fun to leave as a one timer.