Year in Bread, Part 2: Farmhouse White

By gwen -
And we're back! I (and I think Hefk, too) skipped last month... somehow I couldn't seem to find the right number of back-to-back hours for the no-knead bread. The schedule doesn't work quite right for me and, frankly, the kneading is one of the things I'm most in love with about the whole aesthetic of bread-baking. Which, after today's farmhouse white experience, I am officially totally in love with. I want to put a ring on its finger and whisk it away to the honeymoon suite.

I again tried Susan's version; like the people she talks about in the entry, I am someone who pretty much never eats white bread, but this just looked too good.

And the whole experience was great! I don't really have any comments except that it was a really nice way to spend a pre-holiday-weekend Friday afternoon, the process was fun, the bread looks delicious and smells unbelievable and I'm having trouble waiting the recommended 40 minutes after pulling it out of the oven to start eating it.

Some photos:

This was the poking step after the first rise. It seemed ready after 60 minutes -- pretty much everything I did was on the lower end of the times she described.

Proofing! I am in on the secret bread-baking lingo now. It's the last rise, when the dough is actually in the pans it will bake in. I was a little worried that I didn't have the right size pans, because the dough rose a lot in this step and was already well above the tops of the pans, but...

... not really a problem! It didn't rise quite as beautifully as Susan's seems to in the photos, but it definitely rose more, seems solid but not like a total brick, sounded hollow when tapped and fell right out of the pan when turned upside down. I did put some flour on the bottoms and sides of the pans, too, because things seemed a little sticky after the proofing, but not sure if it would have come out with just the extra canola oil I used to grease the pan.

The 40 minutes are almost over now. Mm, bread.

UPDATE: MM, BREAD! This is good, my friends.

Comments

Anonymous said…
so glad your turned out so well! The photos are beautiful. I'm off to try my own right now! Since at the moment there's nothing that DOESN'T make me sweat, turning on the oven seems like just the thing to do as it reaches 90 degrees outside and we haven't yet put in the a/c units.
BREAD...
HONEYMOON SUITES FULL OF BREAD...
11:49 AM
Farmgirl Susan said…
Hello!
I'm just a little bit late getting over here, but your bread looks wonderful! I'm so glad you had success with my recipe. It looks like your pans are larger than mine which is why your loaves aren't as tall.

I tend toward smaller pans because we like taller loaves with that homey, mushroom shaped top (although the nicely shaped square slices do work better for some things). Many recipes call for 9x5 pans for even just a 1-pound loaf, but lately I've been baking 2-1/4 pound loaves in my 8-inch pans. It's all just a matter of taste - and fortunately homemade bread always tastes good! : )
1:08 PM
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