Are you a bread fanatic.....
 

I love this time of the year. Hot cross buns. I went to Safeways the other day and they had hot cross buns but no crosses on it . What the heck!. Anyway found the perfect hot cross buns somewhere else. I admit I am a carbohydrate junkie. Don't like much meat but give me a glass of red wine, cheese and some fresh bread and I am in heaven. Brown bread is better for me but white bread has great taste. Anybody else have this affliction?Cereals, bread ummmmm...:)

Home made sourdough !

Home made whole grain from the bread machine. I try to make one a week.

Can't understand the whole gluten free thang, I loves me some good bread.

I used to make whole grain bread in the bread machine but could not make it rise enough. Put lots of yeast in it though. What is your secret here?

Trial and error. I bought a recipe book and kept trying until I found one I liked and has relatively consistent results. Thing is, even using the same recipe, sometimes you'll just get a bad one in the machine, for whatever reason. Probably inconsistencies in my measurements of salt/sugar/molasses and yeast.

My favorite recipe is an amalgam of several that I tried that uses 1.5 teaspoons of salt, 3 tablespoons of molasses, 1.5 tblsp of white sugar and 1.5 teaspoons of yeast.

And, I keep my yeast in a jar in the freezer.

Having grown up in the Bay Area, I loves me some good San Fran sourdough. I bought 2 starters from these guys, the San Francisco and the Austria.. Sourdoughs International | Sourdough Starters, Recipes, & Baker's Handbook

You can add vital gluten to puff up whole grain making it more similar to white. I don't use a bread machine...and you'd laugh to hear that I grind my own grain, but to me, who also loves good bread, there is no substitute for "real" (un-fiddled with) food for flavour, texture and health. Even most whole grain flour that you purchase has things removed, to prolong it's shelf life. It's very difficult to achieve the "stretchy" quality of a good baguette using whole grains (as opposed to unbleached white) so the bread experience with whole grain is a different one (vs unbleached). I bake every week and usually use sour dough. I work with wheat, spelt, rye and kamut...I mostly use spelt and wheat but small quantities of the others in the bread make for variety that is great. It's amazing that small details that you do differently from week to week DO change outcomes (adding a little rye or olive oil, mixing a few flax seeds in...etc). Cheers

LOVE homemade bread, learned it from my Mom. Great feeling to slice onto hot homemade bread you did.