IHSW Interruption

We interrupt IHSW to bring you this blog post.  I made bread!!!  I searched & searched & searched online for "the perfect old fashioned white bread recipe."  I found a bunch of them but one sort of called out to me.  I know someone is going to ask me what the recipe is so I will tell you ... it's Traditional White Bread Recipe (it has a 5 star rating) & you can find it here on Allrecipes.com.  It's a simple recipe I suppose. I did know that making bread takes a bit of muscle.  For whatever reason, my upper body strength has always been weak so mixing the dough was quite a feat as was the 8 minutes of kneading it ... but I survived, albeit with some soreness lingering today.  I substituted butter for lard (it was noted you could do that if you'd like) & likewise greased my bowl with butter rather than with oil during the rising process.

It rose beautifully!  And yes, that's more Peeps aging on the top of the counter back there   : )

I punched it down & put it in loaf pans for the second rising.  Once again I achieved success   : )

I was a bit hesitant about using these loaf pans but they're all I've got.  They are nonstick & things usually burn on the bottoms/sides when you cook them at the temperature suggested in a recipe.  I carefully put them into the oven & hoped for the best.  The smell of bread baking has got to be one of the best smells in the world   : ) When the baking time was up, I removed the loaves from the oven & turned them out on a wire rack to cool.  I brushed the tops with melted butter because I didn't want a crispy top crust.  

As you can see, they turned out rather nicely!  The bread tastes rather nice as well, but it's not the same as the bread my father used to bake   : (   I've mentioned before that he was a cook & baker while in the Merchant Marine during WWII.  He really enjoyed cooking & baking, & on Sundays he would make homemade bread, breadsticks, & rolls.  The taste, the smell, the texture ... everything about it was wonderful!  How sad that no one in the family ever got the recipe from him   : (   The entire time I was mixing & kneading & baking, I thought about how surprised & pleased dad would've been to see me doing that.  It's kind of a link to him.  I miss him so much.  

I won't make this bread recipe again.  Like I said, it's good, but it's not dad's.  If anyone has a really good old fashioned white bread recipe, please do share it with me.  I'd love to try it.

And now we resume IHSW   : )