BREAD baking

[sweetpotatopie]

.....I usually only take pictures of the ones that came out best!

haha... sadly, me too...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

haha... sadly, me too...

I had to DUMP the first two batches of bread I made in the GARBAGE- and no WAY I would have photographed them! You just get slowly a little better the more you make- hang in there, you're doing great! Bread does not have to be perfect to be appreciated and a great accomplishment.

[Photoflygirl]

I've only made ciabatta bread and some bread in our bread machine, which I find far too dense. I am inspired to buy this book and try some bread baking. I love your loaves, Lisa! They are so pretty.

[deedolce]

Those are GORGEOUS loaves, Lisa!
I'm getting so lazy. I just scoop out some dough, lump it on parchment paper, wait the 20 minutes, and pop it in the oven! I need to work on presentation...

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Thank you guys for the compliments!

I guess I have gotten the hang of the presentation thing so that now that part only takes about three minutes before putting the two loaves in the oven. I either dust with flour and then slash, or else I paint with cornstarch/water glaze, sprinkle with seeds and then slash. Goes pretty quickly. You can make up a little jar of the watery cornstarch glaze and keep it in the fridge to use for about 3 weeks. For seeds, I use white sesame, black sesame, or poppy seed. It's fun to try different slash patterns, too. Sometimes we just like the flour dusting with no seeds at all.
I have found that baking them in the pre-heated cast iron pots creates perfect crusts every time without any steam pans or water spraying, etc. Using parchment to move the loaves and lower them into the pots makes life way easier.

[tulip]

I bought some black sesame seeds from a local South Asian store. I'm going to try a loaf in the dutch oven this weekend. Pics, if they're worthy, will be forthcoming.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I bought some black sesame seeds from a local South Asian store. I'm going to try a loaf in the dutch oven this weekend. Pics, if they're worthy, will be forthcoming.

Exciting!!
Be sure to preheat the oven at least 30 minutes with the dutch oven in there.


Using parchment paper helps to lower the loaf into the pot quickly without having it deflate. the paper doesn't mind the high temps, just gets dark brown and brittle and gets tossed afterwards.
I start the bread off at 500F and covered pot for 20m then I remove the lid and turn down to 450 for another 20m or so, but you'll have your own method I'm sure.

I'm excited to find out how your loaf goes!

[GLC1968]

Is it wrong that I had to buy a second fridge so that I could bake bread again?

Yes, I had to give up making this bread in the interest of using all available fridge space for milk and eggs. We currently have more than 6 dozen eggs and about 7 gallons of milk to store! I finally broke down and bought a small fridge for the milk so that I finally have room to store dough again!

[shootingstar]

Bread surely tastes as lovely as it looks. It looks so ..arty, bleeckerstgirl.

[smilingcat]

hmm mouthwatering bread. They look so delish...

Time to bake another loaf tomorrow. maybe two loaves.

Oh we do have a second fridge in the garage and a deep freezer. We filler up with after thanksgiving turkey, freebie turkey and the like. I got my deep freezer off e-bay of all places and had it shipped from the east coast. And it was still cheaper than buying it here on the west coast.

You might check into e-bay for new equipment or used commercial equipment. They may not be pretty like sub-zero, or Amana but if it goes in the garage, I don't care if it looks industrial. In fact my deep freezer is industrial with NSF certification (okay for commercial use).

And no Mimi, kneading is not required. One thing we noticed though. These bread don't seem to hold up as well as the old traditional style. Or is this just me? I have a dough hook on my mixer so I went back to the kneading way. I just turn on the switch and two minutes later its finished kneading. Well I do knead briefly for the added measure and hand touch.

I think Bao is in order too.