wet

The last few weeks have sucked TREMENDOUSLY around here. Good bread is how I cope. In order to stop the current round of chaos that was the wind down for bedtime last night, I offered to the kids that we should mix up dough.

400g flour

2 pinches of yeast

8g salt

300g water

I wanted a wet, tasty dough that would be ready in time for dinner the next day. I woke up today and at 3 or so punched it down and shaped it. A couple hours later I put it in the oven. Half an hour at 425 later, this is what I pulled out of the oven:

The loaves are almost round. ROUND. Can't believe it.

Basic things can make you so happy.

There'll be a better write-up on my blog,
mentalexperimental.org, but I wanted to thank Floyd for a good starter recipe. I'm still working on modifying this one. I think that I have the general consistency of the bread down that I want, but I want a bit more tang. I think that there may have to be a sourdough component to really get it where I want it to be. But that's a completely new bread.

This is Floyd's recipe with a few modifications. The first is adding a bit more sour cream. The second was adding cheddar cheese instead of chives. The third is the addition of half & half in the dough and the mashed potatoes.

I think that getting a stand mixer will help me with this type of bread the most. I mixed for 8 or so minutes on speed 2 and then folded twice during the bulk fermentation, giving it an hour at the end to come to full bulk. The crumb is light, fluffy, and very tender.

I'm writing the recipe on the blog now. I wanted to share the photo because I'm so proud of how this one turned out. :)