I'm Addicted to Baking! (Really!)

Ok, confession time... Way back when I was a new bride, one main reason that would keep me awake at night were actually two things: "What does it mean to be a Mormon wife?" and "I hope he doesn't like homemade breads." Silly right? Not to me; at the time, those really worried me! I even thought if I cook well enough, he won't ask me to bake anything. Didn't work...

I was scared to find out, IF, my new hubby, "Mr. Proper Mormon RM Man", expected me to be this "quick learner" in the ways of being a Mormon wife. I've heard the horror stories of "barefoot and pregnant while smiling all the while" stereotyping of the so-called, "Molly Mormons". Or the often preached, "be meek and submissive to your husband" bits all my life as well as in the church. I thought, "Not me, I definitely wasn't that kind of a personality. I can and do speak my mind!" But that wasn't the cause of my "wake up sweating" moments, it's the "homemade bread" thing.

I was really naive about what LDS wives learn and end up mastering since I heard and see a lot of talented women in every ward I've been in. It was dizzying to take that all in! One fact, I knew, I didn't know how to make bread and let's just say that the first time he mentioned it, I felt cold all over! I knew I couldn't bake outside of brownies and I was soooo pathetic with cookies. "Bread? Bread?!" (My earlier attempts, I made some of the Filipino dinner rolls a couple of times, and each batch turned out like rocks. They were awful!) You have no idea how much I researched and produced gourmet sandwiches to distract him from wanting homemade breads. LOL But he always managed to mention it and hoped that I would keep trying.

But now that I've conquered my fear of baking and I don't really know how it got started (oh yeah, with his banana bread, back in Gilbert, AZ using the recipe from a Dole Bananas packaging). It was a total "exhale and celebrate" moment when my very first loaf of white bread turned out great! I'm sure you picked up on that from my previous posts. ;-)

So, in honor of that, I got brave and made Honey Wheat Bread! Yes, I crossed over to wheat flour! My own recipe, too! *woot woot* See, see? (sorry poor quality pics, cell had to do, left the cam in the van and hubby took the van)

While I was doing that, the girls decided to make some cookies! Chocolate chip cookies, the recipe, from the back of the Blue Bonnet Baking Margarine box. They were delicious! We shared some with the neighbors!
Ok, back to the sandwich bread... I-Dude and J-Pony helped me knead the dough. It was fun having the kids help. I will definitely have them help again next time.

(Psst... see the container, that's from IKEA, and I'm so lovin' that line that next week, I will buy some more of the tall ones to hold another kind of flour because I'll be making "Multi-Grain" next! And I just realized that I can make my own oat flour by putting the rolled variety into a food processor! Cool and money saving, perfect combo!)

This is what it looked like when it came out! While it was baking, I could smell the honey. See it's imperfection, just fine with me and Mr. Man, when I texted it to him, thought it looked delish!
Here's the heel, look at the inside! Doesn't that look like the commercial sandwich breads? It came out soft and subtly sweet from the honey. mmmm...

So now you know a little bit more of why I am so addicted to baking breads now. It was a fear to conquer! And guess what? I have hubby in love with me more... I can't sing him to sleep or scrapbook well enough to grace any magazine, but I can bake sandwich breads and it's making my marriage that much better! A nice bonus, for sure! LOL It keeps him wanting to come home after a hectic half week at work... I love that man! (And it helped that I aced my three different stints with Chemistry: HS Chemistry (Philippines), HS Chemistry Honors (California) and Chemistry 101 in college(California))

Thanks for reading!