The Kitchenaide is possessed!

I am a pretty good cook but I don't have the temperament to be a great baker. Oh, I can bake, but it isn't really my thing. Husband is a wonderful baker, or I should say was. He still knows how, but can't knead dough due to his injury. Son is an outstanding baker too, he originally learned to make bread from Husband, he has that precise nature where he actually weighs and measures everything. Then we sent Son to cooking school and he blossomed as a baker.

It is my belief that children need to know (before they go out on their own ) how to cook, sew and various household tasks, I don't care if they never do them again, but they need to know how before they leave home. So the when the opportunity to send Son to professional cooking school came up, we took it. He is a great cook too, but what he likes is baking, he can whip up the most amazing breads and cookies.

Alas, he is living in California, and his roommates get to sample his culinary treats not us.

This all leads to the fact that if I want bread, I have to make it. Oh, I can ask Husband if he thinks the dough is kneaded enough or doubled, but I am left to actually do it.

I am not all that excited about the average bread you can buy here in the panederias, mostly they are fluffy white empty calories. No substance. I think it is because of two things, the lack of high gluten flour and the climate. During the summer it's warm and muggy and I think the bread rises too fast, if I had the space I would make slow rise bread by leaving it in the refrigerator overnight, but alas my fridge is too small. I doubt that a bakery here would want to invest in machinery just to retard the rise of their bread. I don't know enough about wheat to understand why they don't have bread flour here, maybe there is not enough of a call for it. I asked at the cooking school and they told me that they didn't know where to buy it either. I even asked at the reposteria where I buy yeast and they said they didn't sell it.

So I got out Husband's copy of James Beard's cookbook Beard on Bread and decided to make George Lang's Potato Bread with Caraway Seeds. I made a few changes because that is who I am, but the recipe that I am giving you is copied directly from the book. I replaced 8 ounces of the all purpose flour with whole wheat (harina intergral) , I used 2 tablespoons of salt and I used1 tablespoon of caraway seeds (that was actually an accident, I grabbed the tablespoon instead of the half tablespoon).The salt was perfect for our taste but I think I used too much caraway, so I don't recommend that change.

One of the things I like about having a heavy duty mixer is that it comes with a dough hook. Oh, the purists say it isn't the same, but as I said, I am not a baking aficionado. That is when I discovered that my mixer is possessed! I plugged the machine in, I slid the switch to stir, and I was rewarded with a spray of flour. I switched it off, I checked the plug, I gingerly slid the switch to the stir setting, once again the dough hook took off spinning like the Mad Hatters' Teacup ride at Disneyland. After messing with it,and redecorating my kitchen in all purpose flour, I asked Husband to see what was happening. He proclaimed it "broken" a technical term he no doubt learned in the electronic technician's program that he graduated from.

I sighed and dumped the mass of dough on the counter and kneaded it by hand. Of course, as soon as I was elbow deep in dough, the architect whom we thought was coming by in the morning arrived.

I did get the bread baked, in fact, I am munching on a piece while typing, which accounts for my lack of speed. It's pretty good, chewy with a nice crumb. I may make cheese fondue tomorrow to eat with any left over slices.