More Bread Experiments

[peteyfrogboy]

I was home sick yesterday, so of course I did the natural thing and made up a batch of bread (I also made egg noodles for soup, but nothing exciting there). This time I changed things up by using milk instead of water. It took longer to rise because it was colder in the house (it ended up going about 24 hours total), but it got there eventually. I baked it at 400° for 30 minutes covered and 20 minutes uncovered. It came out nice and brown, with a chewy crust and yummy soft middle. I'm not sure if the softer crust was a result of the shorter baking time or the milk or both, but I like it. The previous loaves had really hard crusts right out of the oven, though they softened after being bagged for a while. All in all, this was a successful experiment, and I'm seriously contemplating whipping up another batch to make cinnamon raisin bread out of tomorrow...

UPDATE: I made up another batch of dough using the same recipe with the addition of 1/4 c. sugar. Half of this will go into a loaf pan as cinnamon raisin bread, and the other half will be made into steamed bao. Stay tuned for further developments.

Comments

[ripresa.livejournal.com]

Yum.. Btw, I'm following your idea..
starfish -> sheriff badge!

[peteyfrogboy.livejournal.com]

Yay! :)

[baronesspixie.livejournal.com]

MMMM. Cinnamon raisin bread.

[dona-violante.livejournal.com]

What kind of pan are you using to bake it in? I've been baking the bread straight on a pizza stone, with a cup of water in a pan below it, but I would like to try the pan approach for comparison's sake.

[peteyfrogboy.livejournal.com]

I've been using this enameled cast iron pot I swiped from my mother when I got my first apartment back in 1997 or so. :) I cover it with foil during the first phase of baking. I've also used a crock from a crock pot with good success. A cast iron Dutch oven would probably be ideal if you have one. Either putting the dough into a pre-heated vessel or spraying the vessel first with cooking spray is necessary to prevent disastrous sticking. According to the article I read the goal is to trap the moisture inside a small, sealed area to steam the crust before the final browning.