Baking Bread (the easy way)

Well, I have decided that I no longer want to feed my family ingredients in food that I don't understand.  I am a dietitian so have a fairly good idea about what most things on labels are, but these days, even I am confused.  I have started googling the "numbers" on my food packets to find out what they actually are.  Even then I am still not quite sure.  I've decided instead to just consume things that have ingredients I understand.  

For example bread.  Had a look at the ingredients in my bread recently and found quite a few tacked on to the end of the list that I wasn't so sure about. My solution, to find a bread that only contained, well, bread ingredients, something like, grains, flour yeast and water.  After much searching I found that the easiest (and laziest) thing to do was to buy it from my local Bakers Delight. All of the basic loaves only contain "bread" ingredients.

That worked well, and tasted good.  I always choose an wholegrain variety so it is healthy too, wholemeal flour and grains.  As I started this, I realised that my family eats a lot of bread.  Each loaf costing $4.10 each and we were eating at least 3 loaves per week.  On the whole not a lot to spend on bread, $12.30 per week (for the 3 of us) however I still felt like their might be a better way.

Here's where laziness and enjoyment come into balance.  I want to feed myself and my family good food, as well as getting the best value for money.  Prior to this revelation, I had gone through a phase of baking my own bread, when I was on maternity leave.  I even went as far as kneading it myself, but with a newborn this all became too much.

A happy compromise was to use a bread machine.  I knew mum had one sitting in her cupboard which was used quite a lot when it was first bought, probably 7-10 years ago at least.  I borrowed this and happily made loaves of bread.

What I did discover was that the loaves came out a weird shape, all tall and fat which made it tricky to cut.  My solution was to use the bread machine to knead the bread, then bake it myself in the oven.
Seems like more work but... not really, here's how.

Bread machine takes at least 4 hours (5 if you use the wholegrain setting).  If i do it myself it takes 2hrs 20min to make the dough in the machine and about 40 minutes in the oven.

Sooo... saves time, comes out easier to cut and lasts longer because its smaller and thinner.

One minor detail that I need to iron out is the flour I am using.  I grabbed a bag of Laucke bread machine mix for $12.60 and seems like it is going to make quite a few loaves, I will keep you posted on how many.  There is one ingredient that I am not particularly sure if what it is but out of convenience I still went ahead and bought it.

Next step is to find some normal bread flour, wholemeal and grain to use instead.  I know Foodland sells it. But for now this will do, remember I am lazy!

I will post the recipe when I get my hands on it for you.  I will make some more tonight and do a decent post with pics.  Enough for now, time for a cup of tea.