Baking for Serenity

In the midst of the craft mania, I've been baking. Well, faux baking. So far, I've made a bread every four days. A banana bread, a nut medley bread, and a cranberry nut bread, to be exact. I love to bake. It makes me calm and relaxed, and it makes the house smell so good.

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After reading a post on Soule Mama (one of my favorite blogs) and specifically reading her post on WHO bread, I decided that I'd really like to have a bread machine. This is often how things happen in my life. I randomly decide that I want to do something or learn something or go somewhere and it suddenly becomes my new obsession, where I run around, hair on fire, trying to make it happen. It's pretty amusing really, because I can see myself doing it, and it's like the other side of my personality just kicks back and enjoys the show.

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If I've ever e-mailed you at 2am with some sort of weird question or idea, this is probably what's happening.

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So, because I have absolutely no money with which I could purchase a bread machine and since I'm an avid user of Freecycle, I decide to jaunt on over to my local Freecycle Yahoo! group and mention, ever so sweetly, that if anyone has a bread machine that they don't use, I would be happy to take it off their hands, because I would definitely use it.

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On a side note, I love Freecycle. There are all sorts of really nice people on there who give away things they no longer need or want to people who do need and/or want them. It's the whole, "One man's trash is the other man's treasure" bit. And, since people are giving things to others, rather than throwing them in the trash, it's even a good way to make yourself a small part of the green movement. So, there you go...

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Anyway, not even an hour after I posted the message on Freecycle I received an e-mail from a lady who had a bread machine that had been gifted to her, and which she'd never used. Fabulous! It's like it was fate! I picked it up from her a couple of days later, and I've been a bread making mad-woman since. Well, not really. I've made three breads, but still...that bread machine is getting a work-out!

Now, for all of you who are looking down your nose at me in sheer disguist that I would use a bread machine rather than an oven...fine, go ahead. Smirk away. But, let me say, for the record, that I would never stop making bread in the oven and strictly make bread by machine, because it's really just not the same. Bread from the oven is much higher in quality. There is, though, something to be said for the convenience of a bread machine and it's assistance in the kneeding and rising process, which makes things go so much faster, especially if you are super busy. Sometimes people even use the bread machine to kneed and rise, and then transfer the dough into a pan and pop it straight into the oven. So, even if you'd never stoop to making a whole loaf by machine, it's still a nice little gadget to own, if only for that little feature.

My favorite recipe so far, which I thought I'd share, is for a Cranberry Nut Bread. It can most certainly be made in a conventional oven if you're not keen on the bread machine idea! Just use your best judgement with the temperature. I think what makes this bread so delicious is the unexpected flavor of the grated orange peel. It's excellent...

Cranberry Nut Bread

4 oz. orange juice
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 large egg

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tbsp grated orange peel

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup whole cranberries OR 1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

And...check out this little munchkin, who can't keep her mits out of the crumbs! She's such a cutie!