Making Bad Bread

I love confusing titles, and this one unfold as you read this post. For those of us who do, or have ever attempted to make bread, either by hand or in a machine, you will know what I am saying when I say, we have all made bad bread. I can list a plethora of reasons as to why your bread did not do what is was supposed to, but suffice it to say, you will at some point in your bread baking career, make a dud. Do not panic! There is hope.

Do not throw your bread out, there are many a things you can do with bad bread. So hand on to your boots and read on my friends.

Make bread crumbs:
Trim off the burned area, break apart, put into a blender or food processor and blend down to consistency of bread crumbs. If there is enough, then freeze what you will not use. You can also add herbs before freezing if so desired.

Make bread cubes:
Do as instructed above, but do not blend and cut into cubes. You may freeze if ample enough is around. Use cubes for stuffing recipes.

Make bread pudding:
I have made this even with good bread. I do not make it often, but it is such a comfort food and not sickening sweet either. It settles my sweet tooth and fulfilling at the same time.

So do not think you have to trash your bad bread. Just learn to improvise

This is for all you ladies using bread machines. I had one for nearly my entire time of 27 years of marriage. I just gave it to Goodwill a few months ago. I do not miss it. It served a purpose, but not anymore. I can now make bread once a week(by hand) and still get 4 loaves of fresh baked bread, with three of them going in my freezer. We are a family of four and my son is a wheat hussy. That is to say that he will put down anywhere from 3- 6 slices of any type of bread per day.

You have to remember that bread machines while very convenient, can only make one loaf at a time and the shape is not conducive to bread for sandwiches. That motor will not handle the whole grain I use, and if it does it will only do so for a little while. It will eventually burn out the motor. I do not have machine any longer...I have my teenage daughter to do my kneading for me/us. I have not been able to knead since a stupid injury, but hope to be well after surgery so I can hopefully get back to my bread making/baking.

From tip to top, it takes us about 3-4 hours to make 4 loaves a bread. Our family of four goes through about 1-1&1/2 loaves of bread a week. So the 4 loaves we make goes for quite a while. We also make other breads for special occasions. those breads I did not calculate into the 3-4 hours of bread making.

I am by no means an expert, I am learning all the time. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer or get your question answered. Happy bread baking.