Rising Bread and Other Interesting Projects

I live in S.W Florida and for those of you who live in a humid climate and enjoy baking homemade bread you know how iffy it can be to get a decent loaf of yeast bread to rise. Well today while my family was eating lunch and using the last of the store bought bread we had on hand I thought to myself I think I'll make some bread.

So I pulled out my trusty cook book, the one I bought back in the 80's when my husband and I first got together. It is a Betty Crocker Encyclopedia of Cooking. I have used this cookbook for almost 25 years and it has never failed me. I also have a 3 inch binder with recipes I have found over the years. I looked through them both and found a nice recipe for white bread in the Betty Crocker book. Next I pulled out the Kitchen Aide Artisian Mixer that my husband bought for me for Christmas of 2005. I love this mixer! This is the best Christmas gift my husband has ever bought me next to my digital camera and 35mm nikon.

After mixing up the dough and setting it in my oven for it's first rise I realized the temps and humidity must be perfect for bread making. My dough is beautiful, it feels wonderful in my hands and it has acutally doubled in it's first rise. Now to a person who does not enjoy baking fresh homemade bread that might sound a little weird but for the rest of us you know exactly what I am talking about.

After getting this wonderful bread dough in the bread pans for it's second rise I decided I had to take advantage of the perfect climate and start another batch of something. I wasn't sure what. I didn't have time to do a sourdough loaf because I had no starter. I started flipping through my three ring binder and came across a recipe for homemade bagels I haven't made in over a year.

These bagels are wonderful! It is a little time consuming because you boil the dough in a sugar water bath before baking them but believe me it is worth the extra step.

If anyone is interested in the recipes let me know and I will post them.

When I get a chance I'll be posting some pictures of the art work I have been working on. I have found the Somerset Workshop, Transparency Manipulations by Jen Osborn, another article out of the Somerset Workshop2 Magazine. The art work in this magazine is really inspirational. I plan on doing alot of projects from this one magazine.

Arlene