Todd: So Alan, you know, you were a baker so can you explain to the listeners - how do you bake bread?

Alan: Well, you need to make your basic white bread, white pan bread we call it, you need flour, yeast, sugar, shortening, salt and water. So depending on how much you want to make. First of all, you throw in the flour into a big mixing bowl. Then you throw in the sugar, salt and the shortening. You give it a mix. Turn on the machine and mix it a little bit because you don't want to have the yeast come in direct contact with the salt, because salt if it's in direct contact with the yeast, it kills, the yeast will not react and make the bread rise.

Todd: Oh.

Alan: Then you take the yeast. Whatever amount of yeast you have and the best way to do it is you take your water, the amount of water that you need and you break up the yeast into the water. Dissolve it in the water and then start the mixer and as the flour and all the other ingredients are mixing, you pour the water in slowly until you get the consistency that you want. That's one way or you can.. just after you mixed up the flour, the sugar and the salt and the shortening a little bit, enough that it's mixed, blended together, you can just add the yeast into the mixture and then add the water. So you mix it until probably about, I think about eight minutes or nine minutes until the dough is developed and it's a glob and you stop the mixer. You pull it off the bowl, you let it sit on the bench for about five minutes. You let it rise. Then you divide it up, into I think about maybe two kilos, it depends on how big you want your loaf. Usually loaves are between seven and eight hundred grams, maybe one kilo. Divide it up and mold it and put it into the pan. It goes into a proofer. The proofer is a steam box with heat. Moisture and heat, and the bread rises in the proofer and then when it's at a certain level in the proofer you take it out and put it in the oven.

Todd: OK. Sounds good. How long does it have to be in the oven?

Alan: The oven? Usually about twenty minutes.

Todd: And that's it? It's done?

Alan: And then you pull it out of the oven and it's done. Fresh baked bread.