Here in the Atlanta area we are getting quite chilly, so it was a definite weekend to stay in. Well, except for Saturday evening. We (son and I) had a dinner invite over to the parental/grandparental units house. How could I say no to free dinner? Other than that one venture out, son and I stayed holed up all weekend. And what better activity to participate in other than….baking?
We had no bread in the house, so I decided that rather than buy bread, I would just bake it myself. Did I mention I am was terribly intimidated by the whole bread baking process. My parents have been baking bread for years, but I never participated. Once my mom got her bread machine, the home baked bread was abundant. I decided that in order to bake my own bread I would need a bread machine. So, I bought a bread machine. I have used it twice, both times with underwhelming results. That was several years ago.
At Thanksgiving I successfully baked some knotted yeast rolls:

Egg Washed and ready for the oven!

Ready to eat!
So, I was feeling a little less fearful of baking with yeast, but not totally. Then, the dinner invite and an email with this site led to a few wasted hours, but resulted in my baking these and bringing them to the dinner:

Other than forgetting to egg wash them before I cut them and stuffed them with garlic butter, this is what they looked like right before I remembered the egg wash
then it was into the oven!

And this is what the finished rolls looked like. I baked 12, son and I ate 2 before we went my parents. I took the 10 that were left with us and brought home 5. Sunday we had one left. They were pretty tasty. The only thing I would change would be to use salted butter, instead of unsalted in the garlic butter.
Sunday got here and I decided that this was the day to make the bread. I found a recipe for Honey Whole Wheat bread here which makes 2 loaves. I did not use the bread maker, I used my KitchenAid stand mixer. Here are some pics of the process:

This is after rising for one hour. It was massive, but it did make 2 loaves.

Not the prettiest loaf, but it worked. I used a clear glass pan for the other loaf, same size.

The final product. Pretty tasty. Looking forward to toast!
Have a great week everyone! And if you are in a cold part of the US, stay warm!!