Move over Martha....

So many of you know that I am an awful bread maker. And awful doesn't even seem to sum up just how bad my bread can be. When I was a teenager, I thought that hanging out with my friends was much more important than learning how to put dough into bread pans and plop it in the oven. It sounded easy enough, so I didn't want to waste "precious" social time to learn something so Martha Stewart. My mom would say "You'll wish you knew how to do this when you are a mom!" I thought "I'll be fine, no big deal." No big deal huh? When Josh and I first got married, on our 1 month wedding anniversary (yes, we celebrated our anniversary every month...and still do...just kidding!) anyway, I thought it would be so sweet of me to make a nice dinner since we were too poor to just go out to dinner. I pictured this nice dinner topped off with hot rolls from the oven. I got home and went to work in the kitchen trying to pull off this dinner before Josh got home from work. Everything was going great until the rolls. The dough wouldn't rise so I thought if I just put them in the oven, it would be warm enough, they would raise and be perfect. So I gave them a few extra minutes in the oven, and when they were done, they were tiny burnt balls. Josh came home to a smoky "shoebox" of an apartment. I knew then that I should have at least paid attention once to my mom and her knowledge of bread making. And for the last 6 years, I have tried. Believe me, I have tried. I had finally resorted to Rhodes rolls for any occasion. But things have now changed! Last Sunday our Relief Society announced that the mid-week mini class would be on bread making. A lady in the ward was going to have everyone over at her house and she would show us how to make bread. I came home and told Josh his luck was changing. By the next Sunday, we would be having homemade bread and rolls. He chuckled a little and then denied it by saying he had something in his throat. So on Wednesday night I got to her home and was ready to learn. She had set her tables and had so much bread it was amazing. She had made poppy seed bread, banana bread, fancy rolls, regular dinner rolls, wheat bread, white wheat bread, breadsticks and homemade soup. She showed us for the next hour and a half, how simple bread making can be. She gave out recipes to all of the breads there, let us try all of them and then sent us all home with our own loaf of bread as inspiration. So yesterday was the day I had promised Josh would be the start of homemade bread in the Hood home. I couldn't be more surprised with myself. I made 2 loaves of bread and cheese breadsticks and they all turned out!!! Josh even gave me the stamp of approval with "these are the best breadsticks I have ever had!" So now when I am given the "Bring some rolls" assignment, I just might be able to pull it off!

Here is her recipe...

Delicious White Bread

1/2 cup warm water
3 TBSP. yeast
1 tsp. sugar
(put in a bowl and let rise.)

Put the following into a mixer:
Melt 2 TBSP shortening
2/3 cup powdered milk
2/3 cup sugar
4 cups warm water from tap
4 cups flour

Mix and add your yeast mixture. Then add 2 more cups of flour and mix on high for 2-3 minutes. Add more flour until dough pulls from the sides of the bowl. (I had to do an extra 1 1/2 cups of flour since mine was still sticky) Mix 10 minutes on slow while you clean up and prepare pans. Turn out onto greased counter and let rise until double in size. Knead down twice and place in 4-5 greased pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool, remove from pans and finish cooling. And you just made homemade bread, so cut yourself a slice while it is still warm!