Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Tuesdays with Dorie - Julia's White Loaves....

I had forgotten how much fun it was to bake bread.  When my children were small (I'm gonna age myself here) and before there were so many places where you could get good  bread, I spent a couple of years baking bread every weekend.  I mean I was a serious bread baker....I bought flour in 25 lb. sacks from the local health food store and wore out my copies of Beard on Bread and Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book and was making whole wheat, rye and pumpernickel.  I checked out every book the local public library had about bread baking.  Somewhere life got in the way and I stopped. Imagine my delight when I read that the first recipe chosen for TWD BWJ was Julia's White Loaves.....so I rolled up my sleeves and got started...


I guess by now you've figured out how this blog got it's name.  Except for one other small bit of counter space, this is the sum total of my work space.  This recipe, which can be found here, worked great with my KitchenAid Professional 600 stand mixer.


Ready for the first rise....(it's obvious I'm going to have to get better at this photography and lighting thing)

Into the pans for the second rise...


So far so good...not as much rise as I had anticipated.  I think the slight outward slant of the sides of my loaf pans grabbed a little of the over-the-top-of-the-pans rise the book said I would get....


Et voila!  Not bad and the house smelled wonderful.  These loaves have excellent flavor and crumb and make lovely toast.   The best part is I'm baking bread again.

Ah, now all I need is a cup of tea!

And the downside..... ;D

7 comments:

Amanda said...

The dishes are the worst part for me too. (Probably for everyone, I guess) Your bread looks great!

Cher Rockwell said...

Dishes are a total bummer, aren' they... I am sure I would do far more cooking and baking if I didn't have to clean up after myself...
Love the blue stand mixer & it looks like your loaves turned out beautifully.

Jules Someone said...

Those look lovely! I got lucky - I cook and my husband does dishes!

Kris' Kitchen said...

Glad you are baking bread again.Wasn't it fun?

Jennifer said...

Your loaves look gorgeous!

And the dishes are always the down side!

Jenn said...

Ahh, the dishes are not fun, but totally worth it for the yummy bread!

Teresa said...

I can relate to your tiny kitchen woes - I have one small square of workspace, myself. Love your stand mixer - perhaps someday I'll trade up! Your bread looks fantastic.