Baking bread

I believe I've expressed in the past that I am not a baker. However, after reading through Margaux Sky's book of sandwiches, I decided to give baking bread a try. Coincidentally, J got me a Kitchenaid Artisan mixer for my birthday, woot! And so, I put my shiny new Kitchenaid to work, attempting to make bread.

I chose the basic white bread recipe from Baking Illustrated. Although I actually don't use any of my Cooks Illustrated cookbooks, I've always really enjoyed their magazine and their thorough and careful experiments with recipes.

My first attempt used all-purpose flour. I purposefully chose a recipe that used this flour since I didn't have any bread flour. I started off with regular dry yeast, the two rise periods, and put my happy loaf into the oven. The loaf that you see above is the end result. Not bad tastewise, I guess, but very compact and heavy.

Undaunted by this, I decided to try again, this time actually reading the introduction to the cookbook the way I normally do. This time, I learned that all the Baking Illustrated recipes were created using instant rise yeast. They found that it was just as tasty as regular dry yeast.

Wow, did the second loaf rise a lot. The baked version was way overly yeasty. I don't think it's even suitable for croutons. Sigh.

I'm planning to try again this weekend. J notes that I should try a free-form loaf. And I agree. I went back to Margaux Sky's book to look for tips and learned that white bread is for experienced bakers. Doh.