Bread-a-baking

My first go at baking! Bread. Wholewheat oat bread. My favourite kind of bread =D Got the recipe from Martha Stewart, but due to limitations I didn't follow totally.

I was kinda worried because I am not experienced at all, and with a cranky oven, it could fail easily. And there weren't anyone at home who baked bread before! The closest was mum who made char siew bao in her younger days. I've never seen her bake one, so you know how long ago it was.

Used oats, wholemeal flour, bread flour etc. and of course yeast to get the dough you see below. I was supposed to let it rise for 1 to 1.25 hours.

1429hrs - It was smaller a little while ago, I was cleaning up the area before I washed my hands to take these pictures. When I first covered it in cling wrap the dough was in contact with the plastic

1448hrs

1508hrs - The rising slowed down

1520hrs

1534hrs - Like no difference hor? Haha.

It was kinda scary because I could hear some 'activity' going on in there, the active yeast doing its job. Somehow like bubbles popping away. It was as though the dough itself was alive! Creepy.

Then a little kneading and pinching and pushing later, it became a ball and rested peacefully on the baking tray. And then there was another 45 minutes to rise. Rise what? Hasn't it risen enough already?! (coming from an impatient person haha)

45 minutes later
It looked like it was flatter instead of fatter lo =S die die die. Haha

Then I scored the top with a big X.


Pardon the ugly hole in the middle =( Haha I didn't do the shaping part well enough.

Then you sprinkle the top with oats...


And into the oven it goes!



Ta-daa!

The colour is so nice =D

Not as hole-y as bread should be

And in the end. The crust was damn hard (but sis found it nice) and the inside was a little too moist. And not hole-y.

I'll try again!! But baking bread is time-consuming. The never ending wait for the yeast to complete its work. I said I will try again because I can't just leave the ingredients there right. HAHA. And the next time I better lower the temperature a bit, I think my oven is a little too hot. Anyone has an oven thermometer that I can borrow for a little while?

~~~~~

Oh remember the apple tart I baked for Christmas? I forgot to post this. Had it with vanilla ice cream!!! Oooh la la. Heh.


It was super nice with the ice-cream too.

And whatever I am/was wishing for has got to do with this heh heh heh =P