Month: May 2023

I spent the week reading some articles about bread baking, and I ended up going down a rabbit hole of bread…. Bread 101, the science behind baking bread, bread history, no-knead bread, breading on food, milk-bread, soda bread….and this list goes on . I guess I am ignorant to the passion surrounding bread. Maybe I, too, will become passionate about bread after this project is over.  Eventually, I settled on trying a blogger’s recipe. What caught my eye was this: “Easy fast bread recipe that bakes up soft, fluffy and golden brown in only 60 minutes.” ONE HOUR. Come on folks.  If you read last week, I spent 4 HOURS baking 2 loves.

I repeat: ONE HOUR.

Let’s do this.

I quickly realized that the reason this recipe only takes one hour is because of this magical ingredient: quick rising yeast.  I am 99% sure Mamma Val used this back in the day. There’s no way she would spend 4 hours on her bread with 3 kids all up “in her kitchen”.  Huge shoutout to Mamma Val again. Naturally, she had an entire jar of quick rise yeast she gifted me. She is the best.

After taking my middle child to soccer one evening, I came home and promptly gathered my ingredients, excited to have fresh bread in one-hour as the recipe claims.  It was 8:00pm, and I was hopeful to be crushing a fresh slice of bread and butter at 9:15pm.  I’m so sorry to report: SugarGeek Recipes:

To begin, I had to warm the milk to a very precise temperature: 110 degrees. I was very worried I was going to scald it, so I took this part slowly, warming up the milk 30 seconds at a time.  Well, it turns out, I went one 30s too long that it ended up WAY over the recommended temperature. So then, I had to let it cool.  Not off to a very good start of the one-hour track.  This recipe calls for the use of a stand mixer with a dough-hook, and since I have a Kitchen Aid one, I was pumped to use it, thinking it would make up for the time spent on not scalding the milk. I threw all the ingredients in the bowl and let the mixer do the work.  I guess I wouldn’t be getting in my muscle work by kneading like last week.  Pffffffffff.

FALSE.

I followed the instructions to the letter, and I kept testing it to get the little see through window without tearing as stated.

NOPE.

Uggggh. So, I went back to what I know best: kneading it by hand for another 15 minutes to get that darn stretchy window.  I finally achieved that, and this dough was ready to rise. (TIME STAMP: almost 25 minutes into the recipe).

Just like I remember Mamma Val doing, it told me to put it in an oiled bowl with a towel over top, and leave it somewhere warm. It happened to be 29 degrees out, so the air conditioning was on.  I had nowhere warm, so I thought I’d try their suggestion of turning the oven on to the lowest setting and setting the covered bowl in.  PERFECT.

Uggggggggggh.

I didn’t read the suggestion correctly, and put the bowl literally in the oven and closed the door.  WRONG. I wasn’t supposed to shut the door because it gets too hot and could kill the yeast. Oh well, 25 minutes into the rising, and it looked pretty good to me. I guess I’ll never know if I killed the yeast or not (TIME STAMP: well over 60mins into the recipe).

I cut the dough in half and shaped it.  I like that I could just shape it onto a parchment lined baking sheet. I am no artist, but there’s definitely some French bread vibes here. Then, I had to put an egg wash on it.  Egg wash. Pfffffffffffff. What a waste of an egg.  I guess I should I have read all the notes at the end that it could have been milk. Or water. Or something else.  I guess I also should have read that an egg wash is egg and water, not just an egg.

Ugggggggghhhhhh.

Then I had to score the top with four diagonal cuts “at a 30º angle in the top of the loaf, about ¼” deep”. What? I have no idea what that looks like, so I just went for it. Pretty sure I went too deep. And after a solid 90 minutes into this “One-hour bread recipe”, into the oven for 25 minutes.

For sure cut it way too deep.

I mean – the house smells incredible again, so maybe it is worth it?

Okay. FINALLY. After one hour and 55 minutes into the recipe, the bread is done. It actually looks fantastic.  I loved the suggestion to take the temp in the middle of the bread, and if it’s between 190-200 degrees, it’s done.  This is a solid tip I will use for the forthcoming weeks.  They were perfectly golden – I guess the egg wash did it’s job.

Looks gooood…with some deep cuts.

I wanted to let it cool longer, but PLEASE NOTE: it’s 10:00pm at this point and way past my breadtime (see what I did there…). I have lost my mojo.

Alas, to quote Larry, “let’s butter a slice and giv’er a taste!”.

Unreal. Light. Fluffy. Tasty. A success.

So, my friends, this is definitely not a one-hour bread recipe for beginners.  This is more like a one-hour bread recipe for seasoned bakers.  In fairness, I should have read all the way to the end before starting. It would have saved me a lot of “pffffsssss” and “ugggghhhhssss”.  I should have clicked on “jumped to video” instead of “jumping to recipe”.  The video was super helpful and made me recognize my mistakes in hindsight.  Also, the mixer she uses looks super cool – I’ve never seen anything like that in all my Food Network watching.  Probs the most important fact of all time: the quick rise yeast saved me 2 hours – I think it’s the real MVP here.

The real MVP

Or, maybe it’s my husband who is getting fresh bread once a week.

Crushing it

One happy hubby.

Overall, this recipe is good, but I still don’t buy that it’s a one-hour recipe, especially if your standmixer doesn’t do its job. I take full responsibility for not watching the video or reading the recipe notes at the end, but let’s be honest, shouldn’t those notes be put within the instructions, not as a sidebar? I feel like there should be, in big bold letters, READ THE NOTES AT THE END BEFORE YOU START.  I do think this bread tasted better, was lighter and fluffier, and much quicker than Larry’s recipe, but I think at this point, I would use Larry’s instead.  I can’t fault the recipe for my user errors, so I’d still give it 4 doughballs out of 5.

Stay tuned for next week when I try buns for the first time. I’m quite certain it will be quite bun-ny.

I did a lot of searching for an easy bread recipe to follow. I thought about starting with the Queen, Martha Stewart, and then dabbled in considering the bread master, Paul Hollywood. Alas, I decided to keep it simple for week one. I repeatedly came across mentioning and links to this YouTube video, featuring a man that seems to be pretty confident this is the easiest bread recipe for beginners. With over 8.8 million views, it must be a solid tutorial.  As Larry says, “If you’re a beginner, this is the place to start”.

Howdy, Larry.

So, let’s do this. I tried really hard to follow this video to the letter – I mention this because I have been known to just throw around a recipe and follow my heart in the kitchen just like my mamma taught me (huge shout out to my mamma, Val. She’s the best cook I know).

Baking is a different story. I figured I better stick to exactly what Larry tells me to. Here’s what happened.

Stage 1: I  got all my ingredients ready and was ready to rock and roll.

Stage one: Get the ingredients into the bowl and mix away.

I added the water and yeast in a giant bowl. I always thought you needed warm water and sugar to activate the yeast. Weird that I didn’t have to do that. Once that was in and I added all the other ingredients, it was time to knead the dough for 8 minutes. Yes. 8 minutes of kneading with my hands, which I thought would be no big deal, but let me tell ya. It’s no joke. Who *kneads* (see what I did there?) the gym, when you’re busy pushing and pulling dough? I have to say that kneading this dough was incredibly soothing. In the beginning the dough was very sticky, and I was super skeptical. I need to learn to relax and trust the process because eventually it all worked out and became incredibly pliable. Surprise! Following instructions works.

Working it for 8 minutes.

Once I was done, I put it into a giant bowl and covered it. I had to let it sit for an hour.  I thought you needed to let it rise in a warm spot. I found it weird that I didn’t have to do that as I clearly remember my mom doing that with her dough as I grew up.  I tried really hard not to peek during the hour, but I couldn’t take it. At 30 mins, I peeked. I panicked because it didn’t look like it was rising, so I moved it into warmer spot (under the window with the sun shining). It felt right in the moment, and I could hear Val’s voice telling me it needed some warmth. This was the only time I didn’t follow Larry.  Sorry, pal. Val knows best.

Peace out, dough. See you in an hour.

Stage 2: After one hour, I took the cloth off, and it really looked like nothing happened. I didn’t think it rose at all. I thought these things were supposed to double in size! Again, I need to learn to trust the process.  I took it out of the bowl, and as soon as I touched it, it definitely felt much bigger and lighter. The giant white bowl I used deceived me.  Once it was on my countertop, I found Larry’s method for shaping the dough interesting.  I had to spread it out, fold it over, make it into an odd, elongated triangle, and then roll it up into a log and plop it into the buttered pans.  Then, AGAIN, I had to let them rise, covered, for another hour. Honestly, woah. This breadmaking takes a really long time. Sigh. I was starting to lose my mojo.

Not me getting tired of waiting.

Despite Larry not suggesting to let it rest in a warm place, I put it back under the window in the sun. It just felt right considering it worked out well the first rise. I tried my hardest not to peek again, but I couldn’t resist. They looked fantastic.

Ready for the oven!

Stage 3: After another hour of rising, into the oven they go. 40 mins at 400 F. The smell was incredible. Good thing I checked them at the 35 minute mark because I thought I smelled burning. They were starting to get a little dark on the top, so I pulled them out and brushed the tops with melted butter, just as Larry suggested, and let them cool.

I made that!

Stage 4: Get at it. It was soft, felt light, and, as Larry suggested “let’s butter a slice and giv’er a taste!”.  Delicious. My kids and husband also loved it. Half a loaf down the hatch, just like that.

DELISH. I hope you’re proud, Larry.

We will be crushing this all week.

Overall, Larry’s video was extremely easy to follow.  I had no problem pausing and rewinding where needed.  I realized that I didn’t use quick rise yeast as the recipe called for. I just used active dry yeast. Are these two different kinds of yeast? I’m not sure if this altered the recipe or not, but, clearly, I have 2 tasty loaves, so it doesn’t really matter. I don’t have much to be critical about except for the fact that I wish Larry would have told me how long the entire process takes. That’s my fault because I didn’t watch the whole video before I started. I will 100p do that next time. Now that I know this about this recipe, there’s no way I could bake bread after work….too many other distractions. This has to be reserved for a weekend when I have 4 hours “to spare”.   I started this at 2:40pm and didn’t get the loaves out of the oven until 6:40pm.  Four hours is a long time to spend baking bread.  Perhaps next week, I will see if there’s a quicker recipe – if that’s even an option. Am I totally naïve, or does baking bread always take this long?

So, Larry. Right now, since I have no comparison, I’d give it 4.5 dough balls/5.

Interested in making this recipe? Here’s the full video I followed. If you try it out, let me know your thoughts!

Bready or not…here I crumb…

The learning project is right up my alley. Ideally, if there was enough time and money was no issue, I would choose either the cello (always been a dream of mine) or pottery (I don’t have a kiln).  So, I think I’ll stick with something in the realm of what I think I’m good at: cooking. BUT. I suck at baking. SO. I think I’d like to learn how to bake bread.  My family loves all things bread, and quite honestly, there is no greater smell than fresh bread. Adding a pat of butter onto a warm slice of homemade bread is divine. Of course, I’ve never filled my own house up with that smell because, frankly, it scares me. I am super confident whipping up a meal, but I have zero experience baking bread. I just head to Cobbs because it’s easy. Duh.

First, white bread.

Then, homemade buns.

Last, focaccia.

I’m thinking I will tackle three different types of bread throughout the next 6 weeks. Two weeks of trying two different recipes for each type of bread. PaulHollywood might be proud of me….

What do you think about that? Too easy? Too hard? Lay it on me.