Basic White Bread

So, we (Amelia and Jarrod) were talking with our friend Laurel the other night, and she was extolling the virtues of alternate flours. And I (Jarrod) said, "That sounds awesome. But I'm not going to go buy a bunch of different kinds of flours on the off-chance that I think of something to do with them. What I need is a baking project, like working my way through some cookbook." And then Amelia said, "Why don't we bake our way through Beard on Bread?" And then here were are.

The plan, as it currently stands, is to work our way through James Beard's Beard on Bread at a rate of, hopefully, about two recipes a week. We'll see how it goes. But we'll start now! With the first recipe, Basic White Bread. Beard puts it first because it's, well, basic, and "once you have mastered the procedures given here, you can go on to more complex recipes without difficulty." But this recipe is 6 pages long, with 8 pages of notes and trouble shooting. Okay, fine, some of those pages are mostly illustrations, and he goes into crazy detail here so he doesn't have to explain how to knead the bread or proof the yeast ever again. Still, I think it's funny.

And perhaps this would be a good time to have a brief digression on our food credentials. We cook a lot, and garden some, and like to think we appreciate high-quality food. Amelia is a more accomplished bread-baker than Jarrod, and has made Beard's Cottage Cheese Dill-Seed bread many times to great acclaim. Jarrod makes Challah with a bunch of two-year-olds every Friday at his Jewish preschool. So, now you know that.

Anyway, at the moment the bread is on its first rise. I was struck by (a) how much salt Beard calls for, (b) how much butter Beard calls for for bowl-buttering, and (c) how long Beard says you should knead the bread. I suspect all of these things bode very well for the quality of the finished product.

An hour later... This is too much dough for one of our loaf pans, but too little for two. It seems we will need some different sizes of loaf pans for the project to continue. In the meantime, we tore off a little hunk and made a tasty little fry bread (with butter, oregano, and thyme) while waiting on the second rise.

Okay, it's done, and it's quite good. Moist and chewy, with a deeper flavor than you'd expect. Top crust's a bit soft, but I think that's my fault for forgetting the wash on top; bottom crust is lovely. It'd make excellent sandwich bread. Yay!

Next up: Basic Home-Style Bread (basically white bread with milk and butter in).