Shoe in the Road: TWD/BWJ: Bread of Life

I have a history with bread. Once upon a time, I baked 3 loaves of sourdough bread every week and never bought a loaf at the store. It was a 2-day ordeal involving starter (that had to be fed) and a couple of long risings. I believe the weekly baking ended just about the time that my firstborn started walking. Duh. He's 21 now.

A few years ago, I joined the worship ministry at church. You get interested in bread when you prepare communion frequently. From time to time, I even set up bread machines in the sanctuary, timed to finish just before the worship service. The aroma of baking bread fills the room and the bread is still warm when served. We've experimented with different kinds of bread too. Currently, we're praying our way around the world, a different country each week. This week was Estonia, so we used rye bread for communion.

But it's been years since I mixed and kneaded with my own hands, and baked the loaves in an oven. I was thrilled to see that the first recipe picked for the Tuesdays With Dorie: Baking With Julia project was White Loaves.

Reading a few other blogs, I was a little worried about my KitchenAid mixer (her name is Katie). Seems that several participants had trouble kneading the dough in the mixer for 10 minutes on medium speed. There were even stories about dead KitchenAids! Now Katie has a few years on her. She used to belong to my mother-in-law, who entrusted me with her beloved mixer when she moved to a senior living facility. Poor Katie has been sitting in the corner mostly unused for 5 years now but I treasure her and didn't want to risk damage. Since I don't have an owner's manual, the KitchenAid website came to my rescue. Their recommendation for bread dough was 5 minutes at a lower speed, number 2 on the dial. So I did a bit of a combo. Ten minutes, but at the lower speed, and Katie performed beautifully! The dough was gorgeous. I did knead by hand a little at the end for the pleasure of it.