TWD:Baking with Julia--White Loaves

I was very excited that the TWD group chose "Baking with Julia," because I had baked my way through much of this book when it was first published in the 1990s. My family was struggling financially at the time, and I was making almost everything from scratch. With 2 young children, bread was a constant. So these White Loaves were pretty much a staple recipe.

I have not made these in years, so it was a pleasure to go back to this recipe. During my former bread-baking days, I always kneaded my bread by hand because I had a lot of stress to get out of my system and the kneading was very therapeutic. I went back and forth trying to decide whether to do that this time, but the machine won out. It was funny--I've had this KitchenAid mixer for over 25 years, but I think I have only used the dough hook two or three times before.

Action shot of the dough trying to escape the bowl.

After mixing the dough, I put the dough in the "herp room"--otherwise known as Natalie's room-- to rise. I have a Red-Tailed Boa Constrictor, who needs an ambient temperature of 80 degrees, so this one room in our house is always 80--perfect for bread rising. I ran out to the Farmers' Market, and when I came back, the dough had risen very nicely. I punched it down and divided it up into loaves. This is when I discovered I only had one regular loaf pan. I guess it has been a while since I have made bread regularly. I have also given away a lot of my kitchen equipment. I found a weirdly-shaped loaf pan and figured it would do.

Here are my lovely loaves before baking. I decided that I liked the weirdly-shaped pan at this point. It made a nicely shaped loaf of bread.

And here are the baked loaves. I took the shorter, squatter loaf to a Super Bowl party. Bread is a very strange thing to bring to a Super Bowl party. The hostess, however, had just bought some delicious strawberry-rhubarb jam, and we polished off the loaf. The second loaf we ate with dinner the next night, with a little left over for toast.

These White Loaves were exactly what I remembered them to be. The type of homemade bread that my mom made in the 60s and 70s. A somewhat plain, but very delicious loaf of bread.