Bread Making and Eating

With a little patience and time you can make bread as good as the commercially prepared product. It is, I am sure, symptomatic of our age that fewer and fewer people have enough time to make bread. Many are too busy earning money for a colour television set or holiday. Bread-making is time-consuming, but what could be better than having time to talk and laugh with friends or family and then sharing hot butter-dripping crusty bread with them?

There are other factors that are worth bearing in mind. Firstly, unless you buy flour in bulk (5 or 10 kgs), home-made bread will turn out more expensive than commercial bread. Secondly, New Zealand flour is better for making cakes than bread (due to gluten content) - I will elaborate on this next week. Beware also when you buy wholemeal flour much of it is reconstituted (white flour and bran etc.).

Like many other processes in our society, flour making is closely tied to economic gain - you lose profits if you stop machinery early in the refining process to remove wholemeal flour. There are some stoneground wholemeal flours available around town (try health food shops), which give rather pleasing results. Thirdly, the cheapest (and friendliest) way to buy yeast is to use jars of dried yeast and share with friends. Always respect yeast - it's a living plant - never use water that is too hot or you will kill it.