Baking Bliss (voice-to-text on Google but total fail)

I like baking. I think I've been using the oven at least twice a week lately.

I usually bake two batches of bread in a week: at least one in the weekend

and another one sometime during the weekdays. Since I usually bake yeast bread,

it spoils faster and can only last for 3 to 4 days. It’s either because of that or it's all been consumed or eaten. My son eats it for breakfast and sometimes snacks as well.   

We rarely buy bread ever since I got the oven coupled with the time to bake.  Sometimes, I would still buy some bread on a whim or when I don't have time to prepare something for breakfast the next day.  But it seldom happens nowadays. It's either homemade bread or cereal for breakfast. And when I buy bread, I would usually go for the Roman wheat bread with nuts and stuff. Or I would pick up some sweet bread when I feel like eating one but don't want to be troubled to use of all of those butter. I do feel guilty when I see how much sugar and butter go into those bread. So in the spirit of “ignorance is bliss,” I just trying to buy a bit of this and that just to satisfy my cravings with lesser guilt.

I usually bake a loaf of bread or Pinoy bread rolls. Most of these, if not all, have yeast, water, oil, bread, and sugar --- just the basic ones for baking. It doesn't even need oil sometimes which is quite surprising. Sometimes, I would also try quick bread that uses baking soda or baking powder instead of yeast. These would usually be a muffin, some rolled bread or a cookie. Quick bread usually needs more sugar and maybe even butter so I tend to baked things like that rarely. Not only that it's not healthy with all the sugar and butter it needs, but it's also expensive because of the butter so I seldom bake sweet quick bread.

I found myself baking and kneading quite often nowadays and I feel like kneading by hand takes so much time for me that I really wish that I have a stand mixer. I mean, I like the kneading part especially if I am watching something interesting that I would hardly notice the time passing while my hands are busy but “people” in the house are complaining how much time I spend baking. Don’t they know….? They clearly have no idea!

Now, I really wish to be able to buy that stand mixer! 180k grand. I need to save up for that first after I’ve paid my husband for my car. Yes, that was the deal. Instead of me being able to send my annual savings to put in some funds and stocks, I will have to shell it out for the car this year.

My big ticket purchases last year, aside from the trip home and the car, were the oven, Lodge cast iron skillet, Dutch oven, and a Pyrex loaf pan. I still have to complete the car thing with some car tire changes and brake pads sometime until the middle of this year, I hope.

Going back to baking. I will get a stand mixer this year. I’ll have to keep an eye on some sale soon. It will fall into place. :)

(composed using Google docs voice typing tool, Gradeproof add-on, and good old manual editing)