The holidays are almost upon us, which means it's time to hone our rusty baking skills for the homemade breads, cakes, muffins, cookies we'll need to create a festive, fun and delicious holiday. With that in mind, I got out my trusty bread machine and got to work last weekend.

It's been a while since I did any baking, so I decided to start out with a "simple" whole wheat loaf and then work my way up to sweet breads and rolls. Unfortunately, my first three loaves turned out like the one at left. Sadly, my skills need a lot of sharpening. (After my son tried to slice this inedible brick of "bread", so do my knives!)

I figured I wasn't the only one who might be having trouble, so, I did some digging to find tips to use and share in hopes that the beginning of your baking season will be a bit more successful than mine. Here's what I found out:

• Check the dough ball. If you use a bread maker like me, you miss the hands-on feel of kneading, which can alert you to problems with your dough. During the second kneading cycle, open your bread machine and take a peek. If it's dry and flaky, add lukewarm water a teaspoon at a time until the dough ball circles freely in the pan. If it's moist and shapeless, sprinkle in flour until the ball rounds out and is almost dry to the touch.
• Whole wheat is hard. We all want to eat healthy whole grain breads, but it's hard to get them to rise and hold their shape because of the flour's weight and low gluten content. Choose a high protein 'hard' wheat flour or use whole wheat bread flour. Or, try the no-fail alternative: add vital wheat gluten. 
• Fresh ingredients only. If your flour, salt or yeast have been around since last year, don't use them in your baking projects. This is especially important with the yeast and salt because they interact to make the bread rise and keep it from collapsing (as I learned the hard way). 

If all else fails, I know you can always buy mixes or refrigerated dough, but I wasn't ready to give in yet. After buying some fresh ingredients and diligently checking the dough ball, I managed to make one successful loaf last weekend. I wish I could show you, but after smelling fresh-baked, but inedible bread all weekend, the family took the knife to the loaf before I could get to it with a camera. I didn't even get to taste one slice before the whole thing disappeared!

I'll guess I'll just call that a success and move on to practicing holiday muffins next weekend.

Your "Better Baking" Gift Guru,
Linda