Prepare to meet my maker

I received another award yesterday, and while I was doing my little happy dance I suddenly felt like a bit of a fraud. The award is much appreciated (thank you, Margaret!) but a little undeserved, I feel, in the face of all that talent coursing through the blogsphere these days.

Every time I pop into one of your kitchens, there's always something amazing cooking. A Brioche casually laid out on the table; a scene straight out of one of those glossy cookbooks. How?

Do you fit in pastry making classes between sending the kids off to school and board meetings? Did you take Plating 101 in school? Do tiny Matt Armendariz elves live under your sink?



So you can imagine now nervous I am to bring you my first-ever breadmaker bread (I saw that shudder). C'mon, give a gal a break. It's not half bad, is it?

Wholewheat and Polenta Loaf

Place 220ml water and 2 tablespoons of honey in your breadmaker. Cover the liquid completely with 25g polenta, 25g white bread flour and 325g wholewheat flour. In separate corners of the pan add 1 teaspoon of sea salt and 1.5 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Make a small indent in the centre of the flour (but not down to the liquid) and add 3/4 teaspoon of instant yeast. Set the machine to the wholewheat setting, medium crust. Press start.

Now consider how long that took, in contrast to my Heart of Wheat bread.

Damn you technology for taking the pain out of my pain!
Will there be no turning back now that I can bake bread in my sleep (there's the coolest delay timer feature *sigh*)? Will the lure of waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread tempt me away from the path of righteous kneading?



Stay tuned, while Dee contemplates the future of bread in her home... in Singapore. And I'll see you back here on Wednesday with something yummy, and hopefully a brand new madeline pan.

Meanwhile, I'm sending this to the super talented Jude who's hosting Bread Baking Day 13. If he'll have my humble loaf, that is.