He says:
Making bread is extremely enjoyable and at the same time extremely frustrating. As I’ve said before, creating a decent bread loaf is easy. Something’s really got to go wrong for baked dough to come out unpalatable. But making great bread is a challenge; one that I still haven’t completed.
After a little researching, I came across a book that was getting high praise. Authored by master baker Peter Reinhart, Artisan Breads Every Day is a book that geared towards producing high quality breads with minimal hands on time. All of the recipes have you mix one day and then refrigerate the dough for up to four days. This apparently improves flavor because it gives the yeast more time to work their magic.
The book also explains, with excellent pictures, how to work with wet dough and shape the basic bread forms easily (sandwich, baguette, etc.). A while back I started his sandwich bread recipe and so far it’s been the only dough that has really come together like it should, where I could feel it going from a sloppy mess to a springy dough. I think this is because the recipe was in weight and not volume, which was a first for me.
The finished product was excellent. The bread uses only milk for the liquid and it does contain some sugar, but it’s a great sandwich loaf. Plus it rises quite a bit so our sandwiches have so much more real estate to work with.
After first checking his book out from the library and making a delicious loaf, I ended up purchasing the book and will be working my way through all of his recipes. I have a rye sourdough starter fermenting right now for the weekend.
I can’t wait until the fall/winter so that I can use the oven and not make our house a hundred degrees.
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