Basic Home-Style Bread

We're back, for round three!

There've been some lovely developments in our kitchen in the last couple days. Tasty things have been hanging out on our counters, like watermelon and chocolate cake.

Thanks to Rob, we've got a brand-new, candy-apple red ice cream maker!

And thanks to Sue—clearly a fan of this blog—we've got a breadbox!

We were concerned for two reason. The first is that, while beautiful and clearly practical, it's big. But even in our tiny kitchen we found a spot for it, with some minor rearranging. We may store other things in it along with bread—current thoughts include "crackers" and "rolling pin." The other concern was that I looked at it and said, "Well, this isn't airtight at all! How will it keep bread fresh?" But then I did a little research, and found that the airtight vs. non-airtight breadbox debate is alive and well! Many claim that non-airtight does a better job of maintaining the humidity necessary to keeping bread fresh. So we shall see! Half of the French-Style loaf is in there right now, and come tomorrow we'll see what we got. But very excited to give it a whirl! Thanks Sue!

Anyway, on to this week's activities. Basic Home-Style Bread, which Beard describes as a slightly sweet white bread made with milk and butter. Sold! This is the third recipe I've tried here, and the third method for combining yeast/liquid/flour. Basic White Bread was  proof the yeast in the liquid, then mix it with the flour, bam! French-Style Bread was proof the yeast, then gradually mix the flour into the yeast mixture. Now this one has me proof the yeast in some of the liquid, mix some of the flour into the rest of the liquid, then add the yeast mixture, then add the rest of the flour (way simpler than it sounds). What's up with all the variations? Does it really matter at all, considering I'm about the knead it for ten minutes anyway? I'm leaning towards it doesn't matter...

Also, I'm coming to be of the opinion that Beard is just making up quantities of flour. In this recipe the ingredients list calls for "5 to 6 cups," but in the instructions you add flour until it looks right, "usually 4 to 5 cups." I know, the quantity of flour needed will vary each time depending on blah blah blah, but what I really think is that Beard always did flour purely by feel, and just guessed when he filled out the recipes. Which is cool, I'm down with that, I just wish he wouldn't pretend. "Maybe 5ish cups flour" would give me a better idea of what to expect. But now I know. And the correct answer, in this case, was "a little over 5 cups."

In any event, this dough has a really nice texture to work with—very silky and smooth. Though it took forever to rise, both times.

The crust got super beautifully browned, check it out:

 Not especially crispy, but closer to real crust. Very nice crumb, nice flavor, makes good toast.

Though I'm not sure the product was all that much better than Basic White Bread, and it was a bit more work. So... You know. Tasty, but I'm looking for that one to come up that makes me say YUM.

In other news, Watson, our official household Dish Cleaner, likes bread dough. Win!