Last year, I experimented with a sour dough starter from a friend and after only two loaves which were just okay, I neglected the starter and then had to throw it away. No one in my family is big on sour dough bread so without someone clamoring for me to keep baking it, it was easy to give up.
Back in early June, we ran out of bread somehow and as I was feeling a bit under the weather, I didn't want to go to any of the nearby stores. But I couldn't just not have bread in the house, so I pulled out my worn Betty Crocker cookbook and looked for a basic recipe and found Traditional White Bread. It took only a few minutes to put the ingredients together in a bowl and turn it into dough. Kneading it a bit, I moved it into a larger bowl and put it in a warm place to rise. Like finding a seed starting to sprout, seeing dough rise is that same magical feeling. Finally punching it down and cutting it into two portions, I rolled and shaped it into two loaves and hoped for a good second rise. It worked again and now I had two full loaves ready for the hot oven.
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| Screenshot of the recipe |
Out they came, golden and smooth sided. I applied some warm butter and the sides softened right up. They popped right out of the vintage loaf pans and I made myself wait before cutting into the first loaf.
It produces two loaves which I cut in half and freeze in four portions to keep it fresh for about 2 days at a time. The ends make good croutons and any older portions are fine for toast. It was declared much better than store bought bread and I committed to making it two times a week.
Today I prepped the dough to do the first rise for two loaves and then later decided to turn it into hotdogs rolls for lunch. The other portion I turned into hamburger buns for tomorrow's supper. So now I have to mix up another batch to keep us in bread for next week.
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| I did not weigh each dough portion. I just eyeballed it. |
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| These are a 'jumbo' hotdog and the rolls were a perfect fit. |
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| The hamburger buns rising while we ate lunch. |
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| Brushing melted butter all over top and bottom softened them perfectly. |
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| Very, very soft inside... So overall, a very versatile recipe that is not fussy to work with and produces consistently good bread.  |
That is an inspiring account, very much a success story! I have given up on making sourdough in this season of my life, but there's no reason I couldn't go back to a couple of my other tried-and-true bread recipes. I sure would love to smell bread baking in my kitchen again. If I could produce such beautiful loaves as you have shown us, I would love to take pictures of them, too!
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