In which I provide pictures

The other day I told Jared that my new mission in life was to convince people that they could make bread. Simple, good, wholesome bread. He said that sounded like a worthy mission . . .

Anywho. In furtherance of that goal, I have already posted KAF's Wonderful Bread Recipe (which convinced me that breadmaking was possible for ordinary people like myself). Now I bring you Visual Illustration of Said Recipe, and also Evidence of How You Can Make Mistakes and Everything Will Still Be Fine.

Ready? Here we go.

Here is everything you need for this recipe, including utensils. Ingredients from left to right: nonstick spray, canola oil, white whole wheat flour, sea salt (in a big jar because I get it in bulk), potato flakes, raw sugar, yeast (um, it's actually hiding behind the whey), and whey (also in a jar, which is where I store it once I drain it from my yogurt).

After dumping all the dry ingredients into the Kitchen-Aid, I stir them up with a spatula. This is my favorite spatula and it's probably going to die soon. I'm sad.

Now the wet ingredients go in, and we start to knead. It's pretty soupy at first . . .

But then that handy dough hook incorporates the dry ingredients from the bottom. Remember to scrape down the sides well once or twice, so no streaks show up later.

This is about done, maybe a touch more flour. See how stretchy it's gotten? That is the gluten protein getting worked up by kneading.

Finished kneading. It is soft but not sticky: you can see that it's trying to fall off my hand here, but it holds its shape pretty well.

Into the greased bowl it goes. I cover it for an hour and go do something else . . .

. . . then I come back and lo! It has grown!

I make a double recipe, so at this point I plop the risen dough onto a lightly greased counter and slice it in half, as accurately as I can. (Someday I'll get a scale.) Each half is one loaf. If you are only making a single recipe, of course, skip this.

Roll your dough out into a long rectangle, like this. (It's better to go long than to go wide, because it will spread out wider once you roll it up.) Using a bench knife or large spatula if necessary, roll the rectangle up tightly and tuck the ends underneath . . .

Then pop it into your greased pan. Rolling helps to eliminate air bubbles.

I let the loaves rise in a slightly warmed oven now. Here is what they look like at the beginning.

And here they are, crowned about 3/4 inch at the middle. Now take them out, preheat the oven to 350, and stick them back in for 20 minutes.

Foil for another 20 minutes, to avoid burning.

Tada! Bread!

Here's one of my mistakes. I think I didn't grease this loaf pan properly, and as a reward for my carelessness, one side got torn up as I slipped it out of the pan.

Oh well. This side is lovely. And it tasted great-- except that this time around, I forgot to double the salt! Oh well times two. It was fine.

See? Not too hard, right?