Bread Making

A few days ago the KitchenAid mixer arrived all gleaming, and with it my visions of great golden loaves are one step closer to becoming reality. Rather than dive into using a new machine and a whole new aspect of cooking at once, I eased into it by making a gingerbread cake. Nothing to it, the machine mixed the batter in a snap. Then, faced with what to do with a whole gingerbread cake, and at the same time not wanting to see the Michelin Man take my svelte place in the mirror, I had fun giving pieces to friends. The looks on their faces after giving the gingerbread a good sniff, the smiles, the ooo’s and the ahh’s. What could be better?

But I have raisin toast on the brain.

Saturday comes around, and I’ve intentionally kept my calendar open. This will be the day of bread making, the day to put the new machine, and my aptitude for this new venture to the test. I choose an “Easy Whole Wheat Bread” recipe from the web (actually half whole wheat and half bread flour). It strikes appealing notes starting with the easy part, and moving on to including honey and buttermilk in the ingredients. Throw in some raisins and what do we have here? Voila! We have raisin bread. I hope.

With a mug of tea and the instructions for the mixer, I sit down and start reading. Well, I skip over the “IMPORTANT SAFEGUARDS.” Purely the realm of fear-mongers, by now it’s pretty obvious to not use a mixer while standing in the shower. After acquainting myself with the basics I move onto the good part: “Bread Making Tips,” and learn among other handy pointers that the recipe I’m using, in terms of the number of cups of flour is just within the machine’s capacity. Good. No sense dilly-dallying around, we’re going to find out what this baby’s made of.

While the yeast is swimming around in a bowl of warm water, and getting all excited over a pinch of sugar, I start measuring and mixing and fiddling around. So far so good, the mixer seems to handle it. When I get to adding the last of the flour however, it is indeed at its capacity. Having spent a lot of time around machinery, I know the sounds it makes working at the limit and have learned exceeding those limits leads to only one thing. Trouble. Making a rahr-rahr-rahr sound, the mixer slowly kneads the dough. After about five minutes, all the while keeping a close eye on things, I end up with a thick, light brown ball speckled with raisins, clinging to the dough hook. The mass seems oddly alive.

With a tea towel draped over the bowl, I place it on the countertop where the sun streams in a nearby window. It’s time to let the yeasts feast, and no different than the rest of us, they like being warm. Imagine, billions of single cell funguses are in there, having a fine time of it, munching to their little heart’s contents and producing CO2. And lo and behold, as advertised, in about an hour the ball of dough has doubled in size. I’ve created a monstah! The best part of cooking is you get to play with your food. So I punch it down, fool around with it and shape pieces into the waiting bread pans.

But the yeasts are not hampered in the slightest by my stout punching. They rise again. This time, in a hurry. The oven is heating… now, perhaps a little late in the game I check a reference on high altitude baking. It suggests using less yeast to slow the rising. Oops. Checking back on the dough, it’s about to leap out of the pans, so in the oven with them. I set the timer and wait patiently. Sort of… Peering in the oven window, a transformation slowly takes place. These are no longer blobs of dough, these are loaves of bread, the staff of life. There is a connection here, by however fine a thread, to something ancient.

The loaves, golden as my vision, come out of the oven. They didn’t explode or collapse or burn. Turning them out of the pans onto a cooling rack I wonder, “but will they be good?”

I step out to check the mail, and coming back inside, oh… the heavenly aroma of fresh baked bread greets me. Heavenly. In an instant I remember walking in my family home, it would have been on a cold day that my mother did some baking, and while she didn’t often bake bread, when she did, coming in the door full of fresh air and being greeted by those smells… It is a feeling of being home that has no equal, and walking into my place now, these feelings come back in a way I haven’t felt in a long time.

Whether the bread is cool enough to cut or not, I get out the bread knife and make a slice. Steam rises from it, no need for toasting. I slather it with butter and munch, and discover there’s something better than homemade raisin toast. It’s homemade raisin bread, still hot from the oven, sliced and slathered with butter. I devour two thick slices before I know what happens.

Gordon Bunker