October 5, 2013 - 7:12pm
Hi from Houston, TX
Having been retired for nearly two years and bored with my current baking/cooking projects, I have decided to take up bread making. I won't tell you how many years it has been since I made a loaf of bread!
Due to arthritis, I don't know how successful I will be in kneading the dough by hand. I may have to resort to a.....bad word alert.....bread maker for that part. You have a yummy forum here and I am salivating looking at the pictures.
Well, off to check out everything on the website. Have a blessed weekend.
Louise
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We have a couple things in common... Louise is my middle name...and we are both in TX... oh, and a third thing... I almost always let the bread machine do the kneading... it is not about the "work" it is about the art of bread making... my shoulders love me and I love my bread. Welcome aboard, you have found an exciting site with wonderful bread bakers to break bread with.
I am one of the 3 gmas you can check out our weekly bakes... another sister, Helen here in TX and one in WA state, Barbra...
Happy Baking,
Diane
I don't know the severity of your arthritis. I do know that certain techniques for enchancing gluten formation work just fine as long as one can reliably hold a large spoon or rounded bowl scraper. Watch all the videos you can find that show the magic of the stretch and fold method. I make the Tartine basic loaf (see Chad Robertson's book by that name) without strain using such a technique. I can do loaf formation as well without too much dexterity; being able to pinch with some force is necessary, though.
If those movements are beyond you, you may be able to make no-knead bread (find Mark Bittman's video with Jim Lahey originally published on the New York Times website but now easily found on the web using Youtube, for example.)
However you're able to do it, making fresh bread is a marvelous thing to do!