I just removed a lovely loaf of seeded bread from the oven and the house has the loveliest aroma wafting from room to room. The house is now joyful and warm.

The miracle of simply taking flour, yeast, salt and water and mixing  it together with the out come being a beautiful loaf of bread, still mystifies me. (Chemistry was not my long suit in school!) 

I know many people think that making bread is way to time consuming in this day and age. Well, somebody has to do it! Why not you?

Some breads take more time than others. The simple loaf I made this morning took about 45 seconds to process in the food processor and while I was doing other things, the bread rose twice. Once in the oiled bowl and then again in the loaf pan before baking. Total rising time took about 1 1/2 hours, then the baking took about 45 minutes.  All of this was done before noon, so we have fresh bread for tonight and bread for breakfast toast tomorrow.

One reason that people don’t make homemade bread today is that they don’t want to do all that kneading. That’s why a food processor is so important. It does make short work of bread making. But, you must have a quality machine that can handle kneading dough.

Once the dough has been kneaded, all you have to do is put it in an oiled bowl for the first rise. Cover it with a cloth and let it rise for about an hour. Then punch it down, put it in an oiled loaf pan and let it rise again. Have your oven preheated so when it has risen the second time, it can go into the oven. Bake at 375 degrees.

There are breads that can be shaped and baked on a greased baking sheet.

There are many quick breads that you can easily make with baking powder instead of yeast, like scones or corn bread and they can be baked right after mixing.

The fun of making corn bread is using different corn stick pans or muffin pans. Of course,corn bread can be baked in a pie pan and sliced like pie slices. There’s actually a good corn bread recipe on the back of the corn meal container.

Corn bread can be spiced up with cheeses, like jalapeno or cheddar, or sundried tomatoes. Plain and simple or dressed up, you are in for a treat.

Wonderful breads are such a great addition to the dinner table. If you time the baking to coincide with your dinnertime, you family will enjoy hot breads from the oven. It’s really easy once you begin.

Break some bread with your family tonight!