Growing up, my mom insisted both of her daughters learn cooking. If not the fancy stuff but at least the regular everyday cooking. But my sister loved making all things exotic, delicious, and loved baking and cooking various dishes.

She baked cakes, cookies, brownies, and all sorts of deliciousness whose taste I enjoyed all through my teens and part of my tweens.

I had a discerning tongue when it came to food cooked with care.I was an expert taster.That was my main role in the kitchen ,back then.

Luckily, I picked up skills from both my mom and sister unaware. Though nowhere near their expertise and perfection levels, I can recreate recipes from food memories and bugging my mom over the phone.
That has kept me afloat since March. No cooking skills would have been traumatic for everyone concerned otherwise.

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But one thing I never tried making was bread with yeast. I can make roti/ phulka,luchi, paratha stuffed ones, naan, Gur ka paratha,lachha paratha. But never tried baking bread. After tasting a delicious loaf my sister baked last October, I even ordered some Active Instant dry yeast.
I didn’t dare use it. It was spoilt after sometime, and I threw it away. I thought that was the end of it.

Making roti everyday since March for breakfast and dinner was making me mentally tired. We never buy factory-made bread. In the small town we live in, that’s the only kind available. My daughter doesn’t like it, I get horrible acid reflux from it, and my husband would rather avoid it.
So, no store brought bread for eight years.

Now 2020 has seen all of us do a lot of crazy stuff, and this September, I broke my fear of baking bread and have already baked it four times. The last one was even whole wheat.

My sister told me it’s the bread bug. What can I say? My daughter liked it so much that after the first sweet milk loaf was baked, she was continually breaking off small pieces and eating them. It was challenging to make her eat tomatoes, and she made her own tomato and cucumber salad with two slices of fresh bread.I couldn’t believe my eyes.

What can I say, the best way to know whether you are cooking okay is when the people for whom you cook can’t stop eating it!
Sharing my bread activities for the last few days.
I never ever thought, this was something I wanted to do. But as they say, you never say never.

The things I changed
Bread baked in convection mode in a microwave oven (LG). I didn’t use butter, but olive oil. The honey and sugar were one-fourth of that recommended, and you can adjust according to your tastes.
I followed instructions from the manufacturer the second time around for the yeast’s proofing, and it rose better.
To sharing more bread stories.

Here’s the recipe for the bread I baked for the first time.