Baking Bread

I've never been very good at baking bread. My mum and gran used to turn out loaf after loaf of delicious crusty loaves with soft yeasty insides, but the at best all I've ever been able to turn out on my own is something that closely resembles a doorstop . . .

My ex husband was a wonderful breadmaker. Using his mother's recipe, he used to churn out loaf after loaf of wonderful fluffy bread, about 12 loaves at a time every week. (Somewhat of a necessity when you have five growing children!) He broke all the rules when measuring, and made the table dance across the kitchen floor when he kneaded it, leaving flour spread from one end of the kitchen to the other, and a sink full of dirty bowls, bread pans and spoons, but he made truly fabulous bread, so all was forgiven. I always wanted to have the ooomph behind his strong arms and I envyed his ability to turn out a lovely loaf each and every time.

I got a breadmaker several years back and it makes a surprisingly beautiful loaf of bread. That is what I resort to using most of the time when we want a fresh loaf. I have longed though to be able to stretch my hands to making my own dough and creating something lovely and fluffy and, well, just plain good and delicious.



I saw this week, that Zorra of Kochtopf was hosting a bread baking event in honor of World Bread Day, and I thought to myself how wonderful it would be if I could participate. What to do . . . what to do . . . I kept racking my brain, and then I remembered these lovely batter rolls. I wish I had a penny for every one of these my gran and mum had turned out through the years!!! And the best part is these always come up trumps for me as well!! I had almost forgotten about them. I haven't made them in forever. In no time at all I had a batch of them cooling on my cooling rack. Not only are they easy to do, but they are really quick as well. You can have a lovely, tasty and fluffy white bread roll on the table in a little over an hour, easy peasy lemon squeezy!



*Easy Peasy White Batter Rolls*
Makes 18

These truly are a no fail recipe. They always turn out light and fluffy for me. If you have bad luck with baking bread as I do, you really must give these a try. They turn up trumps every time. Baking these will help you to restore faith in your culinary abilities and boy oh boy, they sure go well with a big pot of homemade baked beans!

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegetable shortening (Crisco, Fluffo, White Flora or Trex)
1 large egg

Pour the water into a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast, give it a stir and then let it sit for a few minutes or until it starts to work. Stir it again to totally dissolve.

Add half of the flour, the sugar, salt, softened shortening and the egg. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes, or until completely smooth. Stir in the remaining two cups of flour by hand with a wooden spoon.

Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and set aside in a warm place to rise, until doubled in size, about 3o minutes.

Grease 18 large muffin cups with shortening. Stir the batter down and then spoon it into the greased muffin cups, filling them 1/2 full.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place once again, until the batter reaches the top of the muffin cups. This should take 20 to 30 minutes.

Pre-heat the oven to 205*C/425*F. Place the muffin pans in the oven and bake the rolls until done, about 10 to 15 minutes. Serve warm or cold. They are delicious either way!