Bread Making Day!

I have been wanting to make a hand made loaf for ages.  And today I decided to set the time aside just to do that.

 We have a breadmaker which is great - you just tip all the ingredients into the pan and put it in the machine and 4 hours later you have a lovely tasty loaf.

But I think there is so much more to be gained by making it completely by hand!

While we were on holiday last year for dinner one night we were served a honey and wholemeal loaf it was served with maple butter.  

Oh my goodness - it was soooooo delicious.  

From the moment I tasted it I knew I would want to try and make it.

After we got home I searched on good old google for a recipe - and I found one. 

It came from a cook book called "King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion".  I decided to look for the cook book to see what it was like, I liked what I saw and it got great reviews, so I bought it from Amazon.

 In my view you can never have to many cook books - well you can but who cares :)) 

King Arthur Flour is based in Norwich, Vermont.  I wish I'd known about them before I went on holiday because I would surely have gone to visit the shop.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I decided to make the bread today. 

Recipe courtesy of King Arthur  All Purpose Baking Cookbook.

  Here are all the ingredients needed, the only thing I couldn't get was maple sugar, we can't get that here, so I used brown sugar instead.  I think the maple sugar would have definitely been better though.

Here is the mixture getting it's first proving.

After it's first proving and in bread tins getting ready for it's 2nd proving.

Wow, it did get bigger.  Phew I was happy it worked!  Now the only thing to worry about is the flavour.

Here is the finished product - doesn't look to bad even if I do say so myself :)  

Danny and I both tried it with a bit of butter.  And I am pleased to report it was very tasty - I can imagine it will be very tasty toasted too. 

But I think I will need to try and find some way of putting maple sugar into the mixture - then it will be perfect!

I did enjoy making this bread - and I found out just how hard and how warm you get when you knead bread for 10 minutes.  Next time I will have a t-shirt and not a sweatshirt on, lol.

Now what kind of bread can I try to make next!!!!  :)

Watch this space!!!