Monday, August 30, 2010

Bread that isn't flat!


Switching to unbleached flour really made a difference. The dough was much easier to handle and easier to shape. It still isn't quite the shape I want, but it's much better than last week!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

This Is NOT a Bread Bowl

A few of my friends inspired me to try baking my own bread. I remember my mom baking bread when I was growing up and teaching me how to make pizza dough. I love to make quick breads and am pretty good at it (as long as my baking powder isn't expired). In the past, I haven't had much luck with yeast breads. This is usually because of my lack of patience and making the water too hot. I found a few recipes that tasted great, but weren't very pretty. Instead of trying to master shaping a free-form loaf, I decided to jump right into making a bread bowl.

This is what happened...




As you can tell, this is not a bread bowl. After quite a bit of searching online, I discovered that all-purposed flour and unbleached all-purpose flour are not interchangeable. I also did not knead the dough long enough, so it was way too sticky to work with and shape into a ball.

I decided that before I try making bread bowls and other "fancy" things, I need to learn how to shape a loaf of bread. I made a batch of dough that will sit in the fridge this week and will make 4 loaves of bread. Hopefully there will be something pretty to post by the end of the week.