Bread has been an essential part of my diet since I cut my first tooth. I love bread! All kinds of bread, but especially a really good sourdough baguette.

Prior to beginning our cruising life, we had endless places to buy great bread -- just a short 10-15 minutes drive from home. We had been sailing in the Caribbean long enough for me to understand once we started cruising I might not always be able to find decent bread. This was a huge concern for me.

Years ago I use to make my own bread. It was OK bread, but not great. That is probably why I quit making it, it was just so much easier to buy it. Living on the boat my options were pretty black and white, make my own bread or have none at all sometimes. Even in paradise, a day without bread is just not worth living -- so I was going to have to make my own.

It sounds easy, right? Just look up some highly rated recipes on the internet, get the ingredients and voila (or walah as pronounced by Americans) you have a delicious loaf of bread. Well hold on there peeps, first you need to understand the constraints of preparing and baking in a boat galley! First, our oven is not much bigger than a toaster oven, it's dial goes from 1 to 9 and I have no clue how that relates to temperature. Second, I have like 18" of counter space (well not really but it feels that way when I am cooking). Finally, we are lucky if the temperature of the interior of the boat is as cool as 85-degrees -- imagine having an oven baking at 400-degrees for an hour in your very small (104 SF) living room/dining room/kitchen! Daunting thought, huh? Not to fear friends, a bread maker is the answer! Of course that will take power ... hum ... no worries we have solar panels and a wind generator! Problem solved. Well that is the way I sold it Barry, way back when. It really isn't that simple but that is another story.

My first stop in my search for the perfect bread maker was Amazon. Why you ask? Simple, they sell everything and everything they sell has reviews. Let me just say that finding the cheapest model was not part of the search criteria here. While saving money is always important, we're talking bread here guys, let's be real -- good bread is priceless! Well it didn't take long for a couple of models to pop to the top of the list and in the end I picked the Zojirushi Mini Bread Maker. Without preservatives, bread only lasts about four days down here. The Zojirushi Mini makes a one pound loaf that is just enough for four days of sandwiches for Barry and me.

My luck making bread since we have moved aboard has varied somewhat. I started with recipes that came with the bread maker, while they weren't bad they weren't great either. One day, while perusing the Cruiser's Forum (an online sailing forum I am a member of) I ran across a thread about making bread. There were many great recipes, but more importantly, there were people making bread with the same bread maker as mine and they were sharing their recipes. If they could do it, surely I could too. I picked a recipe for basic French bread made with beer. The first time I made it, it was like manna from heaven! It quickly became my go to bread. I had bought my yeast in the US and brought in it my purse to Puerto Rico, where it went immediately into the refrigerator. Everything was bliss until we came back to the boat at the end of October after being home for three weeks.

When we left at the beginning of October, I entrusted my precious yeast to a fellow boater who promised to diligently protect and keep it cool while we were gone. As most people know, yeast is a live organism (well somewhat) and will die (in other words, not rise) if it gets too hot. The first loaf I made was for Larry to thank him for taking care of my yeast. I sure there is some justice in this since he got the first brick!

Realizing my yeast had passed on, I went to the local IGA to get new yeast. I let Barry talk me into the cheapest brand, one from Turkey. Now we have brick number two and I begin to worry the problem is the bread maker. Brick number three was the result of me ruling out the bread maker and thinking I had screwed up the ingredients ... nope it had to be the yeast. So it's back to the IGA for good ole Fleischmann's Rapid Rise yeast, 3-4 times more expensive than the Turkish yeast. In all honesty I can't say the Turkish yeast was bad. In reflection, I may have killed in on the hot ride from the store to the boat which included a half an hour stop at the local bulk store. So this time the yeast went in the insulated bag with the refrigerated and frozen stuff. And then straight to the frig.

Just look at today's result!



Yum!



Now does any one have some really good sourdough starter they would like to share with me? :)