Ok, so I really enjoy cooking and love to bake cakes, and I've been wanting to try baking some breads and try to start baking my own loaves for my family (without the perservatives and such of the super market breads), so I thought I'd try my hand at my first loaf of active yeast bread today - the culprit....a loaf of seeminly easy, beautiful, delicious looking Homemade Cinnamon Bread.

Score: Bread - 1, Me - 0.

I followed directions on the recipe as I thought I was following to a "T"; however, did have some silent doubts along the way as this is the very first time I have EVER tried making a loaf of any type of bread using active dry yeast. I have been reading other blogs, tips and tricks and all of the such and I'm sure the following are the reasons for my bread making failure:

1. I'm afraid I let the liquid get too hot and did not let it cool enough before adding the yeast.
2. When I added the yeast, I stirred the mixture with the knife I had laying nearby that I cut my hunk of butter off with.
3. My proofing mixture did not have any real noticeable CO2 bubbles.
4. I live in AZ and thought that a good place for my bread to rise for the first rising was in my warmed glass bowl, loosely covered with plastic wrap, on my patio chair in my back yard in the AZ sun (it was a beautiful 90 or so out when it was out there during the 2 hours).
5. I don't have a fancy mixer so I kneaded by hand (in the bowl) - I was so nervous, I didn't take the dough out of the bowl...
6.My dough didn't rise that much, so when I formed it into the roll and placed it in the pan, for the second rising I turned my oven on and placed the pan (again covered with plastic wrap) in my microwave that is directly above/on top of my built-in oven - thinking the microwave would get  enough heat from the oven for rising. Not much happened after over 2 hours.
7. So then, my 87 year old aunt who lives with us suggested placing the pan on the open oven door - so I did this for about another 45 min and still not a lot of activity - so I just decided to bake the loaf.

What a disaster - my loaf is soooo dense and dry - with a pretty good flavor - but who wants to eat dry dense bread? What a long day - felt kind of gratifying during the process, but after nearly the whole entire day, and ending with a loaf of bread nearly inedible, it was a huge let down and disappointment.

So, I've come to one conclusion - there is definitley room for improvement! Today is the beginning of a new life challenge - try to master the art and science of active yeast bread baking. Please wish me luck! Hope to be able to gather a lot of different tips from this site and ultimately end up making delicious, weekly bread for my family - without so much as a grimace on my face (except while kneading the dough).

Take care fellow bakers!
Erin aka Bread Baker 101 

Hi Everyone!

So I am no baking novice, but when it comes to baking bread I am not nearly as experienced as I am when it comes to cookies!

I have previously made successful white bread (with some help from everyone here in the past) and was hoping that I could get a few pointers before taking on my first Italian loaf, especially since I am making it for my future in-laws this weekend!

I am going to be using the Italian Bread recipe on this site (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/italianbread) , but need to make a few modifications because of time and travel restraints.  We will be driving approximately 2 hours upstate, and I plan on bringing my dough with me and baking the bread fresh for dinner upstate.

Because of this travelling and timing issue I was planning on making the dough and allow it to have its first rise and then putting it the fridge (and then refrigerated travel case) and letting it slow rise until we get up to the country.  When we get to our final destination I was going to let it get back to room temperature and rise again before baking.

I have done this in the past with white breads before, but wasn't sure if with the Italian bread I was asking for disaster, does anyone have any insight? 

I know the letting it slowly rise in the fridge allows the gluten to develop and can solve any under kneading problems, so I figured I would be in the clear if I did it for these loaves.  Due to time restraints I will need to make the dough a day before baking it, so I thought this may be a good solution, but am unsure and appreciate any insight you have to offer :)

I also have 3 questions about the recipe if any one can help:

1) It calls for instant yeast - can I use the active dry yeast packets for this and just measure the correct amounts? Or do I need to get the blocks of yeast? Or the bottles of Bread Machine Yeast (which I believe is still active dry yeast but am still unsure)?

2) The recipe calls for nonfat dry milk, can I use regular liquid nonfat milk? If so how to I adjust for it? Is there a particular reason dry milk is used?

3) Different sugar options are given, which one is the best for amazing Italian bread?

I'd appreciate any insight anyone can offer!  I know its a lot of questions but I'd be willing to trade my award winning melt in your mouth pumpkin cookies recipe for some great pointers (I'd be happy to give it to you even if you don't have any!)

Thanks!

Laura

Hey all! Hopefully going to get a starter, started tonight!

My goal is in 12 days, to make a loaf of sourdough.

Now, Looking around, it seems like it's one of the harder loafs to make. I am handy with baking, but this will be my first attempt at anything with yeast! Wish me luck! I'm thinking I will start a blog on here to document my adventures (hopefully not misadventures!) through my trials!

Update soon!

"Hi all,

So this week I tried to make my first sourdough, and seeming as how I live in San Francisco I was pretty excited about this! I have been thoroughly enjoying "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," so I figured I'd use Reinhart's formula for Seed Culture, Barm and Starter.

From Day One, starting the Seed Culture, it looked like something was wrong. First off, my dough was quite wet - almost the consistency of pancake batter, while Reinhart's instructions said the Day One mixture should be a "ball" and to be careful to make sure all the flour was hydrated. I double checked my measurements, and still I had the pancake batter consistency.

Moving on to Day Two, Reinhart said to expect ver little if no rise. My Day One mixture bubbled like a jaccuzi and grew to twice its size in 24 hours. None the less, I soldiered on. At the end of Day Three, after having thrown out half the Day One/Two mixture as per the instructions and added the new ingredients, everything just stopped. In the next 24 hours, the Culture showed no activity at all. I let it sit another 24 hours, and this morning what I saw was this unrisen goo with a film of vinegar-smelling ooze on top. Terrific.

So today I'm starting over...and looking for help. I started again with the Day One formula, and again, it was the consistency of batter (4.25 oz. rye flour to six ounces water). So I added more flour until it truly was a ball and had the consistency of a regular dough.

Any other suggestions? Any assitance would be greatly appreciated!