Baked My First Loaf of Bread

Oh, yes I did!! I'm so proud of myself!

Usually I look online for a lot of my recipes but since I didn't have my 'puter booted up, I turned to my trusty cookbook.

I got all the ingredients together and mixed it all up, according to the recipe. But when it came to the yeast, I must have done something wrong. I put the yeast in a bowl and poured in the very warm water. Must not have had the water warm enough, not sure. But I did get it mixed and had a nice slurry going on.

So then everything went together slowly but surely and pretty soon, I had a nice mound of dough to pummel and knead! I set it off to the side in a bowl and covered the bowl with a towel. Waited about an hour. When I looked at it, it didn't look much bigger than when I put it in the bowl. So I punched and mashed it a few times anyway for good measure. Back in the bowl with the towel over the top.

After about 45 minutes, I took a lookie-loo. Not much bigger. Now, why, think I, is nothing happening?? Then it dawned on me that maybe that corner of the kitchen wasn't warm enough. So I got the floor heater out and propped it up on the counter, facing the bread-dough bowl. After about 30 minutes or so, I looked again. This time, it did look a bit larger.

So, I thought it's had enough time to do it's thing so I greased the loaf dish-thingy and put the dough in. Let it sit a bit longer. This time, some siziness was happening. It did get bigger this time. It got popped in the oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then the heat was lowered to 350 for another 30. I almost forgot to say that right before I popped it in the oven, I brushed the top of the dough with milk...hoping to make a nice brown top.

Then I pulled that puppy out of the oven a little bit early. The smell was absolutely delish but it started to smell a little burned. I rescued my little bready and set it out to cool. After a while, I could wait no longer and cut off a piece anyway. The crust was a little tough but I really liked it. Took some good ol' American chewing!! Very good though.

After it cooled, it cut a lot easier and was so yummy with real butter. Yep, the real deal, real butter. So I wrapped up the rest of the loaf and will save it.

I have pictures but need a time to sit down to upload them. I'm feeling a bit lazy today (the allergy med will do that to me) but I will get them posted.

Just so freakin' proud of myself!! :-)