I LOVE BREAD! Fresh homemade bread, that is.
Call me the carbohydrate queen, I don't care. The taste and smell of fresh baked bread are mouthwatering. Add some real butter and I'm in bread heaven.
In my efforts to master the art of good bread making, I have experienced frustrations and joys. And along the way, I've studied the bread. It's a process of balance --- you must have just the right amount of movement, heat, and ingredients. Or else you end up with:
- messing up the chemistry experiment of yeast multiplication (sugar is your friend, salt kills the process)
- too much/too little flour
- overworking the bread
- bread not rising
- bread sticking to the pan
Who knew there was so much that could go wrong with bread? I sure didn't.
As you 've no doubt noticed from some of my other blogposts, I enjoy finding the lesson in almost everything I do. So keeping that in mind during my breadmaking, I became aware of how 'hard knocks along the journey' make good bread.
Think about it --- bread takes a few punches and gets right back up. It is kneaded and squeezed. It has to endure the fire (heat, that is) --- a warm place for rising two or three times and a hot oven for baking.These are necessary for making good bread.
When I experience 'failure' in my breadmaking and other efforts, I will do what bread does --- RISE AGAIN! I will use it as an opportunity to witness how some of the figurative 'punches', fire, and other events have shaped me into pretty good 'bread'.
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