Mmm... Homemade Bread!

If you've ever made homemade bread, or if you've ever been around when homemade bread was being made, you know that there is almost no better smell than the smell of just-about-finished bread in the oven. I used to babysit for some friends, and the mom made homemade wheat bread using her bread machine. I loved making sandwich lunches for the kids, because that meant I'd have a good excuse to eat some of her amazing bread! I'd even eat the crust for the kids - and I've never been a crust person.

Well that same woman is loaning me a bread machine, and I just love making bread with it! I could eat fresh bread with butter and honey for every meal if I didn't have a husband to feed. :) Brandon likes the homemade bread, but he's used to white bread and I love the half-wheat flour bread recipe that came with the machine. It's not quite as good as Christa's bread, but it's still scrumptious!

I love how easy it is to use. I made homemade bread a few times before I had a bread machine, and with the kneading and dough rising and the yeast - there's just so much that I can mess up. With the bread machine, you just throw the ingredients in (in proper order), turn the machine on the appropriate setting, and a few hours later, you've got fresh, warm bread and a house that couldn't smell any better!

It's also helpful to have a handsome little guy to cheer you on from his high chair

Or from his stroller if he keeps slouching in the high chair.

So, after drooling over the freshly baked bread while it cools for an agonizing 10 minutes, I slice it up, lather it with butter (and honey if I can stand waiting long enough to put it on too), and enjoy!

The only difficult part of making bread with a bread machine is slicing the bread. I've got a nice bread knife to make it a little easier, but Connie's way of easily slicing bread looks awesome - you just need an electric knife and a bread slicing guide - neither of which I have. But my way works too, and it makes me appreciate the saying "the best thing since sliced bread" a little more.

Have you ever made homemade bread? Do you have any cool bread machine recipes? I'd love to try them out! (I've only tried one non-loaf recipe so far, and it was a messy, gooey, utter failure). Share them in the comments!