Baking plays a big part in our lives, and ultimately, in our family. Amy, who learned most of what she knows about baking after she was already married and had one or two children, has determined to teach her daughters (and sons, too) how to cook, bake, and prepare meals from an early age. We've made countless mistakes, but through the mistakes, we gain priceless experience. Over the years we've gathered a sort of loose collection of our favorite recipes and meals. Most of them we have to double, triple, and even quadruple (depending on the recipe, we've been known to multiply a recipe by 7!). Allow us to share some of these with you and your family and please share your ideas, tips and recipes with us! If you have a recipe, etc., to share with us, please e-mail it to inthekitchen@aretheyallyours.com

We realize that not everyone has as many people to feed as we do and would prefer smaller recipes. So if that's you, we have tried to make sure we provide you with both our orignal and a cut-down version of as many recipes possible.

But who knows, you may be one of those families who still needs to double what we've already quadrupled! Just have fun experimenting with what you find here.

You'll find the recipe links and tips on the left-hand side, and various cooking articles below. More are on the way.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to our website.

         Please, make yourself at home.

   Every week I make bread for my family. I love doing it! We have an industrial-size mixer that the Lord blessed us with about three years ago. I make about 8 or 9 loaves at a time and a batch of rolls or sandwich buns, plus the children's new favorite... cinnamon rolls!

   I have always loved baking. That's a good thing, because I get to do plenty of it around my house. I especially love making breads of all kinds.

   Often, the Lord teaches me while I am making bread.* I also enjoy praying while I work. One ingredient that I highly recommend adding to every recipe, though many people omit it, is prayer! Jesus cares about even the smallest things. I have seen Him bless even a batch of bread (I think that without Him my bread would definitely flop every time!).

   The recipe I use and love was passed from one friend to another, then to my Mom and then to me. It is the best recipe for Whole Wheat Bread that I have found so far. I would love to share it with you. (Click here for the recipe.)

   First, we grind the wheat! Two-year-old Mary loves helping dump the kernels in the mill and watching it go down, down, down.  

We order wheat by the fifty pound bag from a store in our town. There are many different varieties of wheat to choose from. I recommend Hard White Spring Wheat; that's what I use and it has always given my bread a great texture (It is not dense or crumbly like some homemade wheat bread I've had before). Using Hard White, my bread usually comes out light and fluffy and a nice light color; that is, of course, if I haven't burned it. In that case, it is everything but fluffy and light-colored.

   I only ever let my bread rise once, and it always ends up rising very well. Basically, after the dough is kneaded, I shape it into loaves and put it right into the pans (when making rolls or cinnamon rolls this is the time that I form them as well before rising). Then I cover them and leave them on the counter to rise for an hour. The friend who passed the recipe to my Mom said she does the same and recommends doing it this way. I don't think I've ever had a problem with my dough not rising well. Sometime it rises too well. I did some quick research on the internet and was satisfied by what I found that this method works for others, too, although many prefer to let their dough rise twice.

   Once the dough has risen in the pans for about an hour, I bake them at 350°f. for 20-30 minutes. The temperature and timing are the things I am having to work with right now to get it just right. Sometimes it takes a little longer, and sometimes I have to change the temperature to be lower or higher. To put it very simply, I just keep an eye on it and adjust the temperature if I notice that it is needed, and I remove the loaves from the oven when I see that they are ready. As you can undoubtedly see, I am still learning.

   Everyone around my house gets excited when they see I am making bread. The house smells wonderful and there's usually several kids watching as I pull the loaves out of the oven, and everyone asks for a hot slice with butter (not that they always get it, but they still ask- just in case). Having two ovens really helps when baking a batch this big!

   I have had a lot of different bread-making experiences since I started last year. The most humiliating times were when I was having trouble getting the right temperature and several batches flopped. I kept ending up with loaves that were black on the bottom and doughy in the middle. Then, I gotta say that the most interesting time I made bread was when we had our running water turned off for a week while the well was being worked on. I got to wash the remaining dough out of that giant mixing bowl with a pot of water we had carried down the hill from the neighbors' ("...and don't pour that water out!!! We need to wipe the counters with it first!"). But I think the best success I have had with baking this bread was the time I put a pan of ice cubes in the bottom of the oven a few minutes before I put the loaves in. This caused the oven to fill with steam while the bread baked, resulting in airy loaves with a crispy crust.

   Although I'm not sure I can quite yet say I have 'mastered the art', I do love being a bread maker. I learn the most through experience- by trial and error. As they say, practice makes perfect.

    Not only does homemade bread taste so much better than store-bought bread, it is also so much healthier for me and my family. It may be a little more work, but it's definitely worth it! Thanks for letting me share the process with you. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

   Happy bread-making!

   * You can read a simple testimony on my blog by clicking here.