Over the past few weeks, I’ve featured the EZ DOH Bread Maker and some of the breads I’ve made with it. I plan to continue testing it and featuring different types of breads that can be prepared in it, but today, I’m doing something different.
I invited the creator of the EZ DOH Bread Maker to tell her bread-baking story and how the idea for the EZ DOH was birthed.
Please join me in welcoming, Ginny, a fellow bread enthusiast and the creator of a unique bread-making tool made in the USA.
Happy Baking!
Cathy
Our Bread-Baking Story – It wasn’t always “EZ”
"Bread is the king of the table and all else is merely the court that surrounds the king. The countries are the soup, the meat, the vegetables, the salad but bread is king."
Louis Bromfield, American novelist (1896-1956)
I’ve been a bread baker for quite some time, though it hasn’t always been so. My husband and I were married in 1977 – and I was NOT a cook. When we moved from Ohio to California to finish school, I was far from family and friends, and on my own to learn cooking and baking skills.
As we rarely had enough money to go out to eat, Dave patiently suffered my experiments. Our favorite day of the week would be when fellow-newly-wed-neighbors in our apartment complex would invite us over to share a fresh, fragrant loaf of homemade bread (Kristy was a farm girl from Nebraska with incredible baking skills). The four of us would greedily devour the delicious loaf (with LOTS of butter) in short order! I was sure I didn’t have the time or the talent to concoct such a wonderful thing, so I left the weekly baking to Kristy! I did occasionally attempt to imitate her creations with frozen bread dough I purchased at the grocery. However, the results were always very, very sad…..and doughy…..and hard…..and tasteless …..you get the picture!
In 1979, Dave finished school and we headed back to Ohio, where we found ourselves a part of a movement to do things “naturally” – we canned our own food, we put a wood-fired furnace in our home, we home-schooled our kids, and, of course , making our own bread became a part of the picture. A dear friend and mentor took me under her wing….and a miracle occurred! I learned how to bake bread! And…..I fell in love.
Eventually, bread baking became my signature. I was asked to bring bread to church gatherings; I always included a specialty bread basket when I catered; our family’s cinnamon rolls were the big draw at the neighborhood garage sales; my children’s friends always hoped they visited when the bread was coming out of the oven.
Initially, I used an old Sunbeam mixer to make the dough when I was in too much of a hurry to knead it by hand. Then I happened upon an antique dough bucket at a local flea market! What a genius invention of simplicity this was! I could make 5-10 loaves at a time neatly and efficiently – I loved it! I often thought how great a “mini bread bucket” would be, especially for friends of mine who asked me to teach them to bake bread. It was easy….it wasn’t very messy…..it would make 1-2 loaves….and it certainly couldn’t cost too much….
Fast forward to today, and with much prayer, help from friends and faith, that “thought” became EZ DOH. Already, we’ve been through revisions and adjustments and we’re sure there’s more to come, but we’re so proud of the product we have to offer. We’re hoping to help many more people overcome that fear of yeast and fall in love with the bread-making process.
Visit EZ DOH us at www.ezdoh.com for more information. See our blog for weekly “Friday Recipes”
