My first Crusty Bread!

Part of this new journey has been my desire to create bread. I have started baking bread again about six weeks ago, with varying results. Being a baker daughter as well as granddaughter, baking in probably in my DNA. Not to mention that I worked with my dad baking after school and during the summer from the age of 12 until I married at the age of 24. I've had my periodic spurts when I had a big hankering to go into my kitchen and bake......usually around Christmas.

Bread has always been a hallmark for me.....the perfect loaf. Not to be found in a normal grocery store. Even many small bakeries's breads have not come close to what I remember of my dad's bread. Then, of course there are the memories of touring Europe in my 20's and sampling the many wonderful earthy breads that were part of our meals.

So to bread baking in a home kitchen. It is a far cry from doing so in a fully equipped bakery with big dough mixers, proofing boxes, and clay lined ovens. My first attempt was a No-knead Bread. Crusty but lacked proper texture. Then I tried a couple using the Food processor. Then about a month ago I tried making bread completely by hand! I loved the feel of kneading flour to produce my dough. I tried a variety of additions to see and taste the results. A lovely by-product of kneading dough for 10 to 15 minutes, is that it has been helping the arthritis that has been starting in my hands. Pain is mostly gone when I make bread, by hand, every couple of days.

Today I wanted to try to get a really crusty loaf of bread. In my reading about making bread by hand, I recalled that it is important to have steam in the oven to get a good crust. I found a recipe that required a "starter", as well as a tray of water in the oven and spraying water every 5 minutes to create steam. I am quite pleased with the crustiness. Good flavour as well since I used whole wheat as well as spelt flours in addition to the bread flour. Here is my bread!!!