Me too.
And remember, baking is tricky, so you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. Maybe exactly like that one. But you must persevere. We’re here to help. Also, don’t forget the jam.
We bought a fairly old bread maker at a garage sale for about $10 and while I enjoyed making bread with it and while the bread was amazing right out of the bread maker it didn’t last long enough. Not just the mold problem. I find that if it’s a couple of days old then it’s just not fresh at all. You don’t normally have that problem with store bought bread.
Yeah, I rarely eat enough bread to finish a fresh loaf before it goes stale, so I resort to the mass produced stuff for sandwiches.
A short shelf life is par for the course with bread that isn’t treated with preservatives. Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence has a bit about him exploring all the local bakeries, and learning “which breads would keep for a day, and which would be stale in three hours[!]…”
My parents always freeze their fresh bread (well, the part they don’t immediately eat, duh!).
Letting it defrost over night and then giving it a short time in the microwave makes it taste surprisingly fresh and even keeps the crust almost as crunchy as on the first day.
With stale bread, I have found that 5 minutes in the oven with a sprinkle of water bring back most of the breads natural state, especially French breads and the like.
Ok I went and bought bread flour, new yeast, and skim milk powder which is in a recipe for my breadmaker but I haven’t tried yet. I also used butter instead of oil or margarine.
It came out better. I think the bread flour is the key as I found a reference online that Canadian all-purpose flour is not great for bread.
The bread rose more than usual, actually a bit too much, as the top dropped down during baking. That may be because of too much yeast, actually 2 1/2 teaspoons felt like a lot though it was the recipe. This was also a freshly opened jar of yeast so I assume it has high percentage active.
Despite the collapse, the bread is quite moist and chewy, which I consider better than crumbly. It was good with margarine and this morning it made good toast.
I’m now leaning to getting a dutch oven and trying to use the bread machine dough setting to simplify preparation and kneeding, then the dutch oven for a round moist loaf. Thoughts? What size, is 5 quart enough?
You don’t need a dutch oven now. Just shape the loaf (there are numerous examples on YouTube) and put it on a cooking stone or baking sheet. Use a tray in a rack under it to put in some cold water right when you start cooking it, to generate some steam for the crust.
(I mean get a dutch oven if you really want one, but you don’t need it right away. If you do need one, yeah, a 4 or 5 quart one should be fine.)
I haven’t tried this loaf recipe but I remember reading about this blogger’s efforts years ago. Might be able to pull some tips from his experience.
I’m hoping you were partially joking. Your crust and crumb both look fantastic to me. Was that a sourdough yeast? Or the instant yeast you mentioned, Penny? And this is the dough you proofed overnight in the fridge, correct?
If you’re hating peel stickage, try a flipping peel instead of sliding it onto a stone like a pizza.
Yeah that was the same dough I proofed in the fridge overnight. Not sourdough (I’ve actually never even eaten sourdough before let alone tried to make some).
@sillhouette - Thanks for the tip! I might try something like that. I was thinking about just using parchment paper and sliding the whole thing over into the pot as well.
Awesome, the reason I asked about sourdough was your great open crumb. I had so many failures making bread with crappy crumbs. Like making too dense bread. :(
That’s usually my problem as well. It just never seems to rise enough. I let this one rest for about 90 minutes in a pretty warm environment, but it still didn’t look anything like most of the loaves I’ve seen being put into the oven as far as elasticity and size is concerned.
The two main things which kill my rise is aging yeast not strong enough, or careless mixing of the salt and yeast too close in the bowl instead of separated. Sometimes if I don’t measure the water ratio right and get the dough too wet, it ends up settling dense on the bottom and rises too much at the top and then collapses. Using paper to transfer to the oven keeps handling to a minimum and seems to help me.
Sometimes if I’m in a hurry I’ll use warm-to-hot water (from the tap) to get more of a rise. Disclaimers: (1) too-hot water is one of the relatively few ways to actually kill yeast and (2) you’re not really supposed to use hot water from the tap for consumption. Also depends on the ambient temperature of the kitchen.
Oooh, that looks good.
I’m making sourdough. It tastes okay, but I’d like a bit darker crust on it and to get a bit more open crumb. I’m going to try the Tartine’s Country Bread sourdough recipe next I think.
Did you use steam inside the oven?
Yes. I’ve had darker crusts on different bread before. I think part of the colorization of this crust is due to the recipe, and it calling for a bit more flour rubbed on the dough than I like.
I mean, I don’t have a steam pipe into the oven like a good commercial baking oven, so the best I can do is the old pan with some water trick. (I know there are other methods as well, but that’s what I use.) :)