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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