Baking my own bread
I’m not a big eater of bread — I usually buy a good loaf, sliced up, and freeze it, and it lasts me a few weeks. But for some reason I’ve started making my own bread. I’m sure it will pass soon, but while it lasts, I’m having fun.
This is the first loaf I made, and the success of that encouraged me to try a couple of other recipes.
Today I tried a no-knead recipe, where you mix up the dough and let it stand overnight, then shape into a loaf, let rise for a couple of hours or until it’s doubled in size, then bake in a dutch oven or cast iron pot with the lid on.
So this is the result — rye and wheat bread. It didn’t rise as much as I’d hoped, but the house smelled fantastic while it was cooking and the final bread, once I’d waited it to cool enough to cut and slather with butter, was the nicest yet. I’ll be trying this one again, for sure. If you want to try it yourself, the recipe is here.
Maybe it didn’t rise as expected because of different cup sizes? I always have to scramble to work out the difference between an American cup and an Australian cup. I know it’s not a lot, but it can make a difference.
Yes, that might be it, although I used the same cup for each ingredient, so it should have stayed proportional, I think it was probably the rye flour, which tends to stodginess anyway, and this particular batch was a bit old as well. I’ll make more bread this way, as I loved the taste of it, so we’ll see if I get any better.