Another out-of-sequence bread from the challenge. I skipped to this one because I had limited about of time to bake and wanted to take advantage of it. This bread is completed in just one day, so it fit the bill. Easy, delicious and versatile — BBA White Bread (Variation 2).
I'm ALMOST DONE baking my way through Peter Reinhart's award winning book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice, along with a number of other amateur bakers (I'm not sure how many are still with us, and a number of us have finished). Want to learn more about it? Check out the following links:
- Pinch My Salt BBA Challenge page—master resource for the challenge
- Buy the Book Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart
- List of Breads See what's coming up.
- Blogroll See who's baking. Great list of some amazing foodie (and not-necessarily-foodie) blogs.
- Flickr Group Photos, photos and more photos!
- Twitter Search for #BBAC to find challenge tweets.
The Bread Baker's Apprentice offers three variations on white bread, playing with a few ingredients and methods. Breads 1 and 2 are almost identical with the exception of milk. #1 used powdered and #2 uses buttermilk. Variation 3 uses a sponge method – mixing the flour, yeast and whole milk and letting that sit for 45 minutes before moving on to the rest of the process.
One of my oft-made pre-challenge bread recipes was for a buttermilk bread, so I opted for Variation 2. Not that I have the others to compare with, but I think I made the right choice.
Here's the ingredient round up. Bread flour, buttermilk powder (love this stuff!), salt, butter, yeast, egg, sugar and water.
Mix all that up, knead, pop it in a greased bowl and let it ferment 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until doubled.
Shape it into a boule...
And let it double in size.
I decided to leave all 36.44 ounces of this dough as one giant boule. I just bought a crazy cheap Dutch oven and wanted to put it to use.
The good folks at America's Test Kitchen tweeted about their Dutch oven test and a surprising recommendation was revealed. It turns out WalMart had one for about $40 and it fared well in their tests. I immediately went on line and snatched one up. I didn't want to risk not finding one at my local store, so I shipped one right to my door. It did a bang up job!
I thought this bread was very tasty. Soft, tender and entirely too easy to just eat and eat. It's definitely worth repeating.
Check out some other BBA baker's white bread variations:
Cathy at Bread Experience Version 3
Paul at Yumarama Bread Blog Version 1
Anne Marie at Rosemary & Garlic made all three!
I, too, love buttermilk powder - what an awesome invention! =) Your boule looks beautiful! This is my go-to recipe for hamburger and hot dog buns. Love how easy it is!
ReplyDeleteKudos for buttermilk powder! I use it all the time~ Thanks for the tip to use the dutch oven. I got mine at Sam's Club...what size is your dutch oven?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Abby. I definitely need to try this for buns!
ReplyDeleteFrieda - It's a 6.5 qt Dutch oven. Not huge, but good size for bread --which is pretty much what I bought it for. :)
This bread looks great!!
ReplyDeletePssst... I left you a little award on my blog ;) Go check it out for details!
Oh my goodness...this is art. That bread looks like comfort food at its best! <3
ReplyDeleteJeannette - Wow, thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. I was sad when I reached the end of the book. My daughter wants me to give a loaf of bread to each of her teachers and we have been having fun feeling out who would like which bread!
ReplyDelete