Baking

I love bread.  In particular I love raisin bread, and I especially love raisin bread made with white flour and jam packed with high fructose corn syrup.  This leads me to a difficult conundrum because I desperately want to eat only healthy home baked things.  Thus I get myself involved in baking all whole wheat bread for a few months and then peter out on enthusiasm... eventually my love of whole wheat gives way and I stop making it.

At some point I start feeling guilty since I have the time and the means to bake bread so I should stop absently munching on crackers and bagels and make my own bread again.  I get in a cycle of being excited about making my own bread and having nothing to do with other wheat based foods and then getting worn down on the concept again.  This time I am trying to introduce a portion of white flour into the mix to try to get the bread to rise better and look more like the fancy pants breads you see at the store - my success has not been resounding in this regard.  I have a bizarre conviction that somehow I can achieve the look of store bought goods while keeping the healthy credibility I want and despite never ending failure I continue to have great expectations.

It is a strange cycle.  I convince myself that this time I will find a way to make the bread's appeal not fade with time and that I won't get sick of it again.  It seems to me that this must be much like yoyo dieting except of course "Man, homemade bread is great!" and "The hell with homemade bread, I am going to the bagel shop" are a lot less frustrating and serious.  Now of course I have to consider the idea that I shouldn't be making things out of wheat at all and that maybe all this slugging away at making whole wheat bread is pretty much equivalent to making cake over and over again.

But such delicious cake with melted butter... nomnomnom.

You see this same thing with people who have bread makers at home.  They initially get super excited and make bread like crazy and then the bread maker gets stuffed in a closet someplace and never comes out again.  Even though each time they are reminded of it they recall how great it is to have fresh bread finish just in time for breakfast it never lasts long.