So I baked some bread...

I was in the mood for homemade bread today so I decided to try my hand at baking some. I'm terrible at making dough with our kitchen aid mixer, it never seems to turn out quite right even though it supposedly makes it way easier. So I figured if I make it by hand a few times, I'll learn what it's supposed to look/feel like and I'll be better at making it the "easy" way. I used this recipe because we have a ton of whole wheat flour that someone gave us, plus it even had the word "simple" in the title. How hard could it be, right?

 I was doing fine until the step where you turn it out onto the counter and knead it. It "may" need 2-4 cups more flour at that point, according to the recipe. So I turn it out and attempt to try to knead it, and it instantly adheres to my fingers giving me these sticky alien hands. There's so much dough stuck that I can barely even bend my fingers, and there's no hope of picking up the measuring cup to add some flour.

But I didn't give up, no, I called in the reinforcements. "Fina! Come here! Take that scoop and dump some flour on top of my dough for me!"

She was happy to be of service, because she had already asked if she could help and I told her no, becuase bread is hard and I needed to concentrate. I'm lucky she didn't decide to be like "Sorry chump, you said you didn't want my help." 

Anyway, with me kneading and her tossing on more flour, we eventually managed to make it into a nice dough. Then she wanted to take a picture of it, so I held the bowl down for her. Sous chef and budding photographer she is.

 So after it rose for an hour I shaped it into loaves. It made 3 loaves, although we only own 2 bread pans. John kept insisting that we own "at least 5" bread pans, but I know we have 2, because that's what most bread recipes yield. (He was home for lunch and he even got down and dug through all the cupboards looking for his hallucinated bread pans. I ended up cooking the 3rd loaf in a little baking dish that is slightly larger in the bottom than a bread pan.)

 It appears to have turned out, I'll know more when it cools enough to cut into.