Made the Buttermilk Cluster
I made the Buttermilk Cluster from the 'favorites' section of this website. I came out pretty good, I'm a rookie when it comes to baking bread, so I was happy it came out like bread, and not a pancake or something.
I have one question though. I baked it like the recipe said, 425 for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, the crust looked perfect, so I took it out and let it cool. When I took off a piece, it tasted a little yeasty/doughy. The texture did not look doughy though, the crumb was very airy and soft.
Then after it cooled completely, I tried some more and it lost most of that yeastyness and tasted much better.
What's going on here? Should I have let it bake a little longer? I followed the recipe, I had good rises in the time that it said, everything seemed fine. The only other thing is I did have to add an additional 3 ounces of water to the dough intially so it wasn't so dry.
Almost every recipe I've read and a lot of the blogs here say that you need to let some breads cool completely before you cut into to them. The heat of the bread when it's taken out of the oven continues to bring the bread's interior heat up a few more degrees. Hard to wait - I know! But worth it to get the kind of bread you're looking for.
Trish
I always let the bread cool completely before cutting into it. But I like to eat warm bread too. So once it has cooled completely (ie: finished cooking), I reheat the bread just before serving it. This crisps up the crust again.
To reheat: turn the oven to 500F. When the oven reaches that temperature, turn it off and put the unsliced bread onto the middle rack for 10 to 15 minutes.
See? You can have your [strike]cake[/strike] warm bread and eat it too....
Thank you for the help. I wasn't sure if the yeasty taste was a function of not cooking it long enough, or not cooling it completetly, or that really fresh bread just tastes that way.
I will use a thermometer to check doneness next time. 190 F.