I am sure I have mentioned it once or twice.  Possibly whined or complained a touch as well.  I have no food processor or mixer.  Oh, the horror?!  While a whole year (and thousands of years of perfectly edible bread making throughout history) behind me with no electronic devices at my whim, proves quite clearly they are in fact, not necessary, I can say with complete satisfaction they are lovely to have.

Peanut butter!  Almond butter!  Hummus!  Mustard!  Pesto!  All of these fantastically ground up and smoothed out products magically appeared out of my three stage bowl cuisinart heavy-duty food processor.  Have I mentioned how much I love my mom and dad?  Oh the gift giving season is among us and I am quite the grateful daughter.  Thank you!

After the traditional pastes were jarred, labeled, and stored I decided to flip the through the pages of my cuisinart cookbook that came along with the machine.  To my surprise there were many recipes for unlikely items that would come from this oscillating blade, bread being the one that (obviously) caught my eye!

While it wasn’t my favorite loaf, it was convenient and the mess was non existent!  Quite the change from my normal course of bread baking.

Here you have it:

Dissolve 2 1/4 tsp of yeast in 1/3 cup of warm water with 1 tsp of sugar

With the dough blade in the large bowl add 2 cups of white and two cups of wheat flour, 4 tablespoons of butter and 1/2 tsp of salt.  Mix for about 15 seconds.  Pour in 1 cup of cold water slowly until it forms a ball, about 45 seconds.  This is unbelievable to me.  45 seconds is equivalent to like 15 minutes of kneading by hand?  I think not.  Perhaps this why the bread was under par.  Edible,  sandwich-able, but under par none the less.

Let rise in an oiled bowl for about 1.5 hours, until doubled.  Butter two 9 by 5 loaf pans.  Punch down your dough and let rest for about 10 minutes.  Divide into two loaves, shape and plop them in.  Let them rise for another hour until the dough reaches the tops of the pans.  Preheat the oven to 400 bake for 30 minutes and let cool.

And because I took no picture of the loaves… I decided to include this one for the cuteness factor of it.  Brotherly love.  Oh thank-you-thank-you for showing me there IS in fact a good reason to have two so close in age.