Two Loaves

      It was bread baking day in the bakery. I knew this because the pharmacy is nearby and I could smell the bread baking in the ovens. I liked the fact that we were located near to the bakery. I like the smell of what is baking.
   For several months, I had been toying around with attempting to bake bread. I'd never done it before. I've made cakes, pies, cookies and caramel rolls using frozen dough, but never bread from scratch. I grew up on homemade bread. Of course, we kids didn't like it. The crust was too tough and all the other kids ate store bought bread.
  After years of eating mass produced bread, I began to realise it wasn't that good. C and I started buying bread from a bakery after Toastmaster meetings. It made me wonder. Could I do this?
   I had asked a couple of people if baking bread was difficult. Most of them answered that it was. None of them explained why. Was it really that hard? I didn't remember that it was difficult, just time consuming.
   I sniffed the air again. I had the next day off. I should just try it. I had a Betty Crocker cookbook. Mom always told me that Betty Crocker was a good place to look if you didn't know how to cook something. Bread ingredients weren't that expensive. It's just flour,water, shortening and yeast. All I needed to buy was yeast. If I botched it at least I wasn't wasting too much money.
  After I got done with work I went to buy yeast. I remembered that my Dad would buy yeast in a small block. I checked the refrigerator section. No yeast. I looked all around. I would have to go to plan B. I knew yeast also came in small packets. For some reason my mother never used the packets as she didn't think they worked as well. Since I couldn't find anything else, I decided to give it a try. I was going to bake bread.
   I started looking in my cookbooks the next morning. I found a simple recipe for white bread. I had everything I needed and it didn't look too complicated. I even had a thermometer so I could measure the water temperature for the yeast. I assembled everything I needed, tied on my trusty apron and went to work. I followed the directions exactly. Baking depends a lot on chemistry and I knew all the proportions had to be correct. If I decided to do this more often, then I could improvise. I mixed everything together with  half of the flour. It looked and smelled like the dough my mother used to make. I took this as a good sign.
   Now for the hard part. As the flour is added, the dough becomes too stiff to mix with a beater. I would have to use my hands. I didn't mind. I added  the flour one cup at a time until I had added enough. The next step was to knead the dough. I sprinkled some flour over a small area of the counter and began to knead. According to the recipe I had to knead the dough for ten minutes or so. My hands quickly got tired. This must be the difficult part everyone talked about. I rested my hands for half a minute and then started in again. I kept turning and kneading the dough resting my hands once in awhile. I liked doing this. I liked the feel of the dough in my hands.
   After the dough was kneaded I had to let it rise. This was the part that worried me. I wasn't sure that my kitchen was warm enough. The cookbook said to put the bread over a pan of warm water if needed. I put some warm tap water in a bowl and set the bread bowl on top of it. Then I covered the dough with a cotton dish towel. My mother always did this when she baked. I left the dough to rise.
   There were other things I needed to do. I had to resist the temptation to peek at the dough. I did the dishes hoping that the kitchen would warm up and the dough would rise properly.
   Before I knew it, the timer I set went off and I checked the dough. It had risen. The dough had risen just like it was supposed to. If I could have I would have turned a somersault for joy. Since I'm not that flexible I contented myself with a victory fist pump. I turned the dough onto the counter again and shaped it into two loaves. I put more hot water in the bowl and then set my wire baking rack over it. I balanced the loaf pans on the rack and covered them again.
  I forgot to set the timer. When I didn't hear it go off I got worried. I couldn't quite remember when I had set the loaves to rise. I sneaked a peek at them. They didn't look quite ready yet. I set the timer for 15 more minutes.
   When I checked on the loaves they looked perfect. I felt confident. I tuned on the oven and waited for it to preheat. Normally I would put in whatever I wanted to bake five minutes after turning on the oven. This time I waited for the oven to tell me when it was ready. I moved the rack down to the place the cookbook said it should be. It seemed like that oven took forever to warm up. I passed the time by reading a book.
   The oven bell rang. I put the loaves in. This time I remembered to set the timer. This was the last step. I took care of some other tasks. The smell of the bread filled the kitchen. It was the right smell. I smiled. It was the smell of success.
    When the timer went off I went  to the kitchen. What would I see when I opened the door? I slowly opened the oven door. Inside were two nicely baked loaves of bread. They were a little on the dark side of brown, but were definitely not burnt. I had done it. I took the loaves out of the oven and put them on the wire rack. I brushed the top crust with butter. I was tempted to sample, but wanted to wait until C got home.
   I greeted C at the door and showed him the two loaves proudly sitting on the wire rack. I got out a knife and cut a slice from a loaf. The inside looked like bread is supposed to look. I tasted it. It was good. I offered a small piece to C. It was perfect. I had done it. I had baked bread from scratch.
   I had so much fun doing it that I want to bake more bread. My next project is going to be a whole grain bread. The white was good, but a bit bland as C and I are used to multi grain breads. I just might have a new hobby on my hands. I'm looking forward to it.