Baker's Clay... Baking Bread

We borrowed Lianne's breadmaker since she only used it once. I really never knew how easy it was to make homemade whole wheat bread with a breadmaker. The hardest part was the 4 stores I went to to buy all the ingredients, price comparing and trying to get as much organic, bin and fresh ingredients as possible. It's literally toss 9 ingredients in (tossing order is important, as is keeping yeast separate from salt and liquid) and press a few buttons.

A few weeks ago on my day off, we made the first batch. Maiya was busy when I was getting everything ready. As soon as I hit the start button and set out to wait the 3 1/2 hours for the bread to bake, Maiya all of a sudden wanted to "help" me make bread. So I got on the internet, and 3 minutes later I had an easy recipe for Baker's Clay.

Baker's Clay
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 1/2 cups water
food coloring

I split it up in half and made one green batch and one orangy batch. We pretty much spent ALL morning playing with this dough. Maiya got out all her baking tools. (By the way, her toy measuring spoons are more accurate than my 25 year old measuring spoons.) You can either put it in a 250 degree oven for an hour, or let it sit and air dry for 48 hours. You can also paint, decorate or shellac when it cools, but I covered it and put it in the fridge to use again later.

And, 3 1/2 hours later, voila! We had fresh mostly organic whole wheat bread. It was delicious. Me and Maiya ate over half a loaf in one sitting with butter and fresh Ollalaberry jam. Yum!