DO YOU BAKE YOU OWN BREAD????

Do you bake your own bread?  I am a very good ( not to toot my own horn, but actually great) , baker and cook.  I have grown up with amazing cooks in our family.  My Grandfather did all of the cooking and baking and my Great-grandmother made the most fabulous cookies, recipes I use now all the time.

I am blessed with the gift to be able to taste something and deconstuct the ingredients.  I hardly ever use recipes when I cook, all of my soups, which I make often, each taste different, I add a bit of this and whatever is on hand, it always turns out delicious.

I have had a small Catering Business and At Home Bakery called "Sinfully Delicious".  One Christmas when I decided to sell my cookies and called it "Santa's Little Helper", well Santa's Little Helper was so exhausted from the reorders because everyone ate the cookies well before the holidays, that I did not even make any for my family that year.

The one thing I have tried, over and over again, is making bread.  For some reason this is an art I cannot master.

I have used the best ingredients, taken time, waited, breads have risen and been baked, I have always been so optimistic and then it comes out of the oven.

I tap it to make sure to have that hollow sound signally it is baked.  I let it cool and slice into what I hope with be a rustic, sumptious loaf and ....... heavy!

I always end up with a rock loaf of bread!

All I want, all I have ever wanted as a cook, is to make a mouth watering, eye applealing, rustic loaf of loveliness.  To serve a warm, delicious loaf with my homemade jam ( that I can do with my eyes closed)!

I want to have my own bread everyday, hearty loafs for country sandwiches and picnics, airy light slices of happiness to serve family and friends, a loaf to be proud of.

Look at this mouthwatering loaf of love from HINT OF VANILLA Blog.  This makes me want to try again to perfect a loaf of country bread.

I have a top of the line Bread Machine but I always think that is cheating.  It does all of the work and although it makes a nice loaf of bread it is just not the same and one I have made with my own hands.

I will not go down without a fight.  One day, I will serve a perfect, rustic loaf of bread made with heart and hands and it will sit proudly on the table with fresh butter and homemade preserves and be devoured in a short time and I will have to start again but I won't care as long as I know the next loaf will be as good as the last!

If you make your own bread I would love some help, am I kneading too long, not proofing long enough?  Any help is appreciated.