I am hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for my family tomorrow — my first official holiday dinner soiree at my new apartment! 🙂 I know that I should be cleaning the house and getting ready for the big night, like my upstairs neighbor who was vacuuming the floor with what sounded like an industrial-sized machine (it was loud!).  Instead, I decided to bake couple loaves of bread to give out tomorrow as a “thank-you-for-coming” presents for my family. I know that my parents eat toasts for breakfast religiously, so a home-baked bread should be a perfect way to wake up from a turkey coma the next morning! Of course, I’m planning on serving the bread during dinner as well.

I used Martha Stewart’s recipe from her Website. (This exact recipe appears on her baking book that I own but it is still inside a box that I’m currently using as a TV stand … hahaha.) Never mind the jail thing, or the ice queen thing … I love Martha. I love her show, her cookbooks, her style, everything! Everything that I’ve tried so far from her cookbooks and online recipes have been a huge success and this one was no exception.

What I love so much about the recipe is that it calls for ordinary ingredients that you can easily find at any regular supermarket.  The only ingredient that you might have difficulty locating is wheat germ but I bought mine at Whole Foods (any specialty stores should carry it, but I don’t think I found it at Trader’s Joe though).  I used to be intimidated by this cootie-esque ingredient until I purchased a bag for the homemade granola bar and realized that these little brown flakes are not as scary as the name suggests. This recipe also does not require you to have any special machines or gadgets, so you’ll be okay even if you don’t own a Kitchaid stand mixer.

I must admit that I did make some alterations to the recipe. First, instead of two packets of active yeast, I used one (I totally misread the recipe), and I only put in one tablespoon of salt instead of two (two just sounded way too much). But surprisingly, the loaves still came out delicious!

I love watching the dough double in size. As I watched it get bigger by the minute, I realized that we are no different than a bread dough … if you eat sweets (yeast feeds on sugar) and lay out in the sun (you need to put the dough in a warm place, like on an unheated stove top), we too will double in size! Yikes!

Kneading the dough is such a stress reliever! If you’re ever angry, knead the dough and let your aggression out! It’s a win-win situation!

Divide the dough in half and put each in a canola oil-greased pan and wait for them to double in size again.

After baking the loaves for about 45 minutes (the recipe calls for 50-60 minutes but mine only took about 40-45 minutes), let them rest for a while before you slice into them! I know, it’s difficult to wait when you have these lovely loaves waiting for you!

The inside came out fluffy and perfect and the crust was flaky and chewy!

This is such an incredibly stress-free recipe, I hope you will give it a try! You definitely won’t be disappointed with two loaves of wonderful wheat bread that’s ready to sandwich turkey leftovers!

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Update: I had a sandwich with leftover turkey, toasted homemade wheat bread slices, cranberry sauce, arugula, mayonnaise (just a little), and Dijon mustard, for lunch. This is another reason why Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays of the year! It was absolutely delicious!