Fresh baked home made bread

How did you get started?
Where did the name Bumble Bread come from?
What was the first bread you made?
Can I freeze my bread?
What is the difference between white and whole wheat flour?
What is your recipe for French Toast?

How did you get started?

    I am often asked where I got my training for baking bread and the answer is, myself. I had been an injection mold designer since 1988 and started my own mold design firm in 1994. It had grown into a nice little business and we did quite well until plastic work started going overseas, then a change in our country's leadership further decreased our business to the point where I had to close my office and go back to working from home. 9/11 brought the stock market down and left me with very little work and a lot of time at home. I decided one day in October that I would like to have a loaf of fresh baked bread.

  I had tried bread machines in the past and never got a good loaf of bread out of them. I wanted a nice soft loaf of white bread for a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I started searching for recipes and I found one that looked on the internet for a county fair winning recipe and made it by hand from scratch. It came out perfect on the first try and I haven't bought a loaf of white bread for home since. I started buying bread books and experimenting with different recipes, trying different flours and tweaking them to be my own.

  I couldn't eat all of the bread that I was making so I started passing it out to my friends who kept telling me I should be selling it. My sister worked at the park district in Gurnee and told me to try selling bread at their Farmers' Market. I worked for 12 hours in my home kitchen oven making four loaves of bread at a time until I had 50 loaves of white, wheat, cinnamon and crusty hearth bread that I sold out of in under an hour. I tried that for a few weeks but discovered it was too much work for the money I was making so I had to stop selling but I kept trying new recipes.

  Over the next two years we bought a new house with some extra room in the basement and my little hobby started to grow. I started with a used pizza oven from a commercial equipment store and a mixer I bought on eBay that I had to pick it up from a donut shop in Cleveland on our way back from vacation. I kept adding little pieces of equipment, built in the kitchen and started selling bread. After many calls between the State and County health Departments the State of Illinois finally came in and after I met their requirements, approved my kitchen for selling bread.

  I worked the Gurnee market for two more years, selling out of bread every week, but my original idea when building my kitchen was to create a home bread delivery service. I started delivering in 2005 with most of my customers being co-workers of my wife but as I started selling bread for school fundraisers, more local people started ordering so I had just enough customers to keep me baking bread through the winters. In 2007 I made the tough decision to stop working the Gurnee market and instead focus my efforts closer to home to help increase the delivery business. Now I am selling at the Woodstock and McHenry Farmers' Markets and will be back to home delivery this fall.

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Where did the name Bumble Bread come from?

  One Christmas after we had put up all of our decorations, one of our neighbors came over for a visit. Their daughter was afraid of some of the talking Rudolph decorations that we had in the house, especially the abominable snowman. Every time they got ready to visit she would cry that she didn't want to go to the Bumble house. From that point on to them, we became the Bumbles. I had been thinking of names for a bread company reminiscent of Wonder Bread, the soft white bread that I was trying to create and Bumble Bread just kind of rolled of the tongue.

  When I started the home delivery I tried to change the name to Bread To You but the people spoke so I went back to The Bumble Bread Company.

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What was the first bread you made?

  The first recipe I made I found on the internet at Allrecipes.com. I have since changed the recipe to suit my tastes but this is the one that got me started. Click here to try it for yourself.

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Can I freeze my bread?

    Yes, bread can be frozen. While fresh bread is always best, having some frozen bread around can be handy. To get the best results from frozen bread, wrapp it  with heavy plastic wrap and then with aluminum foil (to prevent freezer burn) or in a double layer of freezer bags. Bread can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months but should be used within 1 month for best flavor and texture.
     To thaw the bread, leave it wrapped to retain moisture and let it stand at room temperature for about three hours. For a quicker thaw or to refresh the loaf, remove the plastic wrap and place it in a preheated oven  at 325° for fifteen to thirty minutes. For a softer crust you can reheat it in a damp brown paper bag. Do not use recycled or printed bags. Place the bread in the bag and close the end with a twist tie. Run tap water over the top of the bag just to moisten it and place in a 300° preheated oven until soft.

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What is the difference between white and whole wheat flour?

    With all of the diet and exercise plans out there, I wanted to know why they say white foods are bad for us. I did a little investigating and found many different opinions but it still boils down to this. White foods are not necessarily bad for you but other similar whole grain foods can be better for you.

    White foods such as rice, flour and sugar have more carbohydrates that are used to create energy for the human body. If you don't use that energy it will be stored for later as fat. Whole grain foods take longer to digest and help to make you feel full.

    In the case of flour, whole grain flour uses the entire wheat berry thus preserving all of the nutrients in the flour, white flour uses only a small part of the berry. Though white flour is enriched with vitamins and minerals it still falls short of the nutritional value of whole wheat flour. Below is a list of some of the nutrient differences in one cup of whole wheat and white flour.

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What is your recipe for French Toast?

    Since nearly everybody knows how to make French Toast, I'll concentrate on the techniques more than the recipe.

    I like to make French Toast using my cinnamon bread but you can also use plain white bread, just add a little cinnamon to the eggs when you mix them. I use half the number of eggs than the slices of bread that I have. If I'm making a dozen slices of toast I'll use six eggs and a little bit of heavy cream (to fluff up the eggs) or milk. Mix the eggs in a bowl deep enough to dip the bread. Coat both sides of the bread in the egg mixture and drag it along the side of the bowl to remove the excess mixture. Stack the dipped bread on a plate and allow it to absorb the egg mixture while you are warming up the pan. allowing the egg mixture to soak in give the toast a great texture without having glops of fried egg hanging off the sides.

    Preaheat a skillet or griddle over medium-high heat until a drop of water sprinkled on the skillet sizzles. Place the French Toast in single layers on the skillet and cook each side until golden brown, about 1-2 minutes per side. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with real maple syrup. Enjoy!

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