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My grandmother gave us a bread maker for my anniversary, and I have been baking bread almost everyday since.

My mother and great-grandmother are/were the spectacular bread makers in the family.  My great-grandmother’s bread was the most fabulous light sweetness I’ve ever eaten in my life.  My mother makes wide varieties of breads, and I was raised with it in the house all through the cold months.  White homemade bread with butter and honey remains my favorite thing to eat when I need comfort.

There’s something spiritual about making bread for my family.  Despite the technology of the bread-maker, I feel like I’m doing something that generations and generations of women have done to take care of their family.  I’m prone to drifting away into my imagination, and I love to think of that while Buttercup and I measure the ingredients carefully into the basin.  It’s like I’m helping my great grandmother squeeze out perfect rolls of dough again, and for a minute, she’s with me again.

So far I’ve made honey wheat, white, three-cheese, parmesan peppercorn, cinnamon and raisin, and a rustic Italian loaf.  It’s delicious.  The honey wheat makes the most tempting French toast.  The cinnamon raisin is good for that, too.  It’s a good thing I joined the Y, or I’d be in great danger of getting a little more wiggle in my jiggle.

I want to make stuffing and bread pudding with the leftovers.  Next, I’m going to try my hand at pizza dough and someday soon – I’m going to attempt to make soft homemade pretzels :)

While I can’t quite make bread by hand as well as my mother or great-grandmother, I can do a decent job.  With the bread maker, it’s so much less time consuming that I can make all the bread for the house.  Considering the cost of a decent loaf of wheat, I’m happy to do this.  You can even use powered vitamin C as a preservative.  How much healthier is that than the alternative?  I can’t wait to go to the farmer’s market and check out the local flours available.

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