A successful loaf!

This one turned out wonderful!

I used the pullman pan, but did not put on the lid.  I used King Arthur flour and SAF instant yeast and the plain white bread recipe from KA.  It turned out yummy and delicious.  Made a grilled cheese with it and was great!

Pullman pan

So who has seen this type of pan before?

It's called a pullman pan and I have read that you can use the bread in 5 minutes a day recipes and make sandwich bread with this pan!  I got one, and here is my experiment with it.

Taking the basic boule recipe, I used this pan and baked bread in it.  Ignore the dent in it, that is where I tried to use the thermometer to test the temp.

This first time it came out WAY too dense.  I did like how it filled the pan fully and made a great shape.

So I posted my issue on the breadin5 website, got some suggestions and by then was ready to start another batch of dough.  This time, I am using metric weights instead of volume measurements in making my dough.  This seems to have helped a little with the dense issue, but its still dense and wetter than I am wanting.  I think I am expecting regular yeast bread, which this is not.

I am using unbleached flour, and very fresh yeast, and following it EXACT on the recipe, and based on the suggestions from the website, I put less dough in the pan and gave it a longer rest time.  This resulted in the bread not filling the pan, and not going all the way to the top.

Its a little bit less dense, but not much.  Here is what it looks like cut in to

You can see, I am getting a little bit bigger hole structure, and it tastes just fine, but not like sandwich bread, which is what I want.

Then taking the recipe that comes from the pan manufacturer, for a regular white bread, on the same day I made this last loaf, I decided to make a regular loaf, just so I can see how they taste side by side.  

Here is the regular recipe bread, which also did NOT fill the pan (pout) and also while dense, was not wet like the other one.

Here they are side by side, note the breadin5 one on the left has had a few more slices taken from it :) and the regular one had just come out, so I had not sliced into it when I took this photo.  

For sandwiches, the taste of the traditional bread is much better, now I just have to work on getting it right so that it fills the pan.  I think I may have left out the butter in the recipe, now that I think about it, and am just not sure.  I know I did not let it rise to half an inch from the top, I did it based on time not size in the recipe.  My anxiousness to get it made may also have affected the rise.  So once this bread is eaten up in the next week or so, I will make another traditional recipe of bread and see how that one goes.

Naan recipe

So I have done this recipe now twice, from the flatbread book and have to say this is a terrific flat bread.  I also love how you can take out just enough to make the number of flat breads that you want.  Even though flatbread is my favorite, its not something though that I want several days in a row.  So with this last batch, I have put half the dough into the freezer, will let you know how that works when I get it out!

bread in 5 basic recipe try

First I gathered my ingredients.  I have the wrong book in this photo, these are the ingredients for the basic recipe.

 After mixing the dough into the container, it looks like this

Left it out to rise, then into the fridge as the books says.

 Baked up my first loaf the next day.  It is very dense and chewy, reminds me of a crusty artisan bread, which, I believe is the goal!

A new blog and a new experiment

My journey started a few months ago, no really it was several years ago when I spent two full days making flat bread on a cast iron skillet over an open fire as part of a cooking demonstration.  Since then I had thought some about bread, had even reproduced that same campfire bread a few times, but not a lot until a few months ago did my interest peak again.  I have been actively changing my eating habits to be healthier, adding more vegetables, adding more whole grains, and had been buying the expensive whole wheat breads in the grocery store.  I started really looking at the ingredients of these breads, and was surprised at the amount of preservatives that are in them.  Now, I as I sit here and drink my Diet Dr. Pepper, I am not someone who is overzealous about chemicals in what I consume, but I consider myself more aware.  I thought about it a while and as my norm, was researching things on the good ol internet.  I came across this website Bread in 5 minutes a day and was intrigued.   I got the first book and the new flatbread book because I really love naan flatbreads.  Hence my bread making journey has begun.