Post Edit: Thanks TWD friends for the encouraging words. Because of you I tried this recipe again - I purchased fresh active dry yeast, used bread flour instead of all purpose, made rolls instead, and stole borrowed this idea from our host Jules - a cool way of measuring dough during its first rise.
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| Adding dough to cereal container - marked with a sharpie to indicate # cups |
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| 45 min rise - doubled in size (already a good sign!) |
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| Let's try rolls instead |
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| After 1 hour - 2nd rise complete |
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| After baking for 17 minutes, I took the temp of the rolls - a perfect 200 degrees |
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| My family declared these a success! |
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| So, so good! |
I joined TWD earlier this month - Tuesdays with Dorie - and we, myself and 300 other bloggers, are baking our way through Dorie Greenspan's book
Baking with Julia - (you can read more about our group by clicking on the link in my sidebar).
Well, the BIG day has arrived. Today, I overcame my fear of yeast. Yessiree, I sure did. I had quite a bit of trepidation over this recipe because it rained today. The 1st rise went very quickly but my bread really struggled during that 2nd rise...it took 2 hours in front of my fireplace just to rise even with the top of the pan. I took no further chances and popped those babies right into the oven. I really stressed over that!!! Would the loaves taste good? Would they look good?
But alas, all of my effort was worthwhile.
The two loaves of white bread turned out - not as high and fluffy as other results I've seen today, but they did turn out! SUCCESS!
Big sigh of relief here. The bread is wonderfully brown on the outside, delightfully dense and delicious on the inside. No kidding...it tastes really good and not just because I slathered one of the slices in strawberry preserves either.
I'm linking up to our hosts for today's challenge.
Jules and
Laurie. You can find the recipe on
Jules' blog.
I'll definitely make this bread again...just probably not when it's raining.
