The Night I Decided to Bake Bread

There are few household tasks I hate more in the world than taking down seasonal decorations in my house.  I love putting decorations out for Halloween, Christmas, etc; however, the un-decorating is something I find mildly depressing. So when I found myself taking down Halloween decorations, I was feeling slightly down in the dumps and I wondered what I could do to pick myself up again.

The answer...BAKE!

So I began searching some of my favourite foodie websites for ideas. My biggest frustration with this task was finding a recipe in which I had all the ingredients in the house! I finally settled on two delicious-sounding recipes:  Beginners Rolls (adapted from http://eatliverun.com/beginners-rolls/) and Brown Sugar Banana Chocoloate Nut Bread (adapted from http://ohsheglows.com/recipes/#breads).

First things first....the Rolls. It should be noted that I have NEVER baked bread of any kind before. So armed with determination and plenty of time on my hands I began with the ingredients I needed. 

Turns out there are not many ingredients required. Perfect....how hard can it be....

I got the dough ready to begin rising...

So far it does not look very appetizing. After letting it rise for half an hour, I rolled the dough into little buns...

It was about at this point that I realized that I forgot a very key ingredient....THE FREAKING SALT! UGH! So I set these aside to rise for another half hour and started on my second recipe of the night.

Ingredients....check!

My Happy Helper....

The ingredients combined to look something like this....

It took an hour to bake which seemed like forever when the smell was so enticing. Finally, it was ready to take out of the oven.

I was still cursing at myself for forgetting the salt in the rolls so I fixed myself a snack. After all, it is imperative to taste test the finished product!!

Yum.....the bread turned out to be quite delicious. I was ready to get back to the salt-less buns.

After baking in the oven for about 15 minutes, they looked pretty darn good.

Despite their looks, they tasted a bit bland (possibly due to their lack of salt....) so I doused them in jam and they were tolerable.

All in All, a productive night. Un-decorating my house is almost forgotten....and Christmas decorating is just around the corner....:)


ADELLE