Update on Baking Homemade Bread: The Good, The Bad, and The Tasty Mistakes

A while ago, I talked about my intention to make bread from scratch as well as why I’m doing it in a post. Now that I have had some time to bake bread over and over again, I can honestly say that I love how my bread tastes! It isn’t like the store bought breads, but I still like my bread more. It is heavier and denser than the store bought bread. Even though this is natural for the type of bread I make, it does require me to cut thinner slices. I still haven’t master cutting the right size slice, so the bread is still larger than I want it to be.

Even though the problems I’m currently having with my bread isn’t a big deal, I’m still struggling mastering the recipe. My goal is to eventually become good enough at making the recipe that the only thing I need to review in the cookbook is the exact measurements for each ingredient. I still haven’t made it that far. Because of this, I have made many mistake loafs of bread.

Usually my problem involves getting the bread dough to rise properly and on time. The weather has been dry where I live, so I’ve been struggling to keep the dough moist. I finally solved that problem by microwaving a mug full of water until it boils. Then I put the dough into the microwave and let everything sit until the rising time is over. Basically, I turned the microwave into a bread box. I’ve know of other people doing this and I have also done this before many years ago. I just never microwaved a mug of water to create warm steam as well! So far, it has worked really well. I plan on doing this every time I make bread whenever the air is dry.

Even though I figured out the solution to my problem, I still struggled creating very small, very dense loafs. It was very frustrating and disheartening to see the bread I worked so hard on turned out wrong. I wanted to give up many times, but I was still encouraged by my friends and the way these mistake loafs turned out. Despite how the bread turned out, it was still really good bread! It was eatable bread and, even though it tasted off, it was still a tasty bread. Just not what I wanted it to be. It made small yet tasty toast! So, I continued to try making bread until I figured out how to fix the dough rising problems.

There are so many things that makes me happy to bake bread, and also makes me frustrated, but the major payoff by making bread for myself is how my allergies have improved. I started making homemade bread because the store bought bread I would eat contained ingredients I’m allergic to. Ever since I switched over to eating my homemade bread only, I have noticed a major improvement in my allergies. I still suffer from allergies, especially the allergies I have to plants and vegetation near my home, but I can sometimes go without taking my allergy medication as much as I usually do. This does depend on the season and the weather, but I’m doing much better! I feel so inspired by how much improvement I have experienced that I decided to see if there are any other foods I like to occasionally eat that contain my allergies.

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

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