Monday, March 12, 2012

Sandwich Bread

Want to hear a funny story?

A couple of weekends ago I wanted to bake some bread.  It wasn't the first time I've made bread {I started baking my own bread for my lunch sandwiches last year.} but it would be the first time since I took a bread making class at The Kitchen Window.  Now I should be a bread making genius, right?  Wrong.

We made french bread in class but I was going to make sandwich bread from the recipe in the handout.  As I started mixing together the ingredients I realize the recipe calls for the egg and milk to be room temperature.  Oops, I just grabbed them right out of the refrigerator.  I hoped that wasn't going to be a problem.  I got my dough made and kneaded and set it aside to raise. And I waited.  And I waited.  Then I waited some more.  After 2 1/2 + hours my dough still looked the same size.  Maybe the eggs and milk had been too cold.  Or my house wasn't warm enough.  Then I came up with the brilliant idea of turning the oven on and setting the bowl on the warm stove top.  In fact, I would put it in the back burner.  Thirty minutes later I checked my dough.  Yes, that did the trick and my dough had doubled in size...and baked.  And the bottom of the plastic bowl was melted.  I was not about to throw all that hard work away.  I got rid of the baked dough and still had enough for a loaf of bread.  But for some reason, I made it into two loaves {shaking my head}.  This story does have a happy ending though.  My two mini full size loaves tasted great.

Fast forward to last Saturday and attempt #2 at baking sandwich bread.  This time it also took a long time for the bread to raise so I turned up the heat in my house and put the dough in the bathroom - the warmest spot in my house.  I'm going to have to be more patient during bread baking because I want it to raise fast.  But the bread was great again.




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