those pics are incredible.

All the bread in this thread looks amazing - so inspirational

Also, after reading this post on making a 100% whole wheat sourdough bread, I've been messing around with the recipe. This last loaf turned out great.

As Eurotrash himself can attest, I have a bit of an otaku streak, so I went as far as hunting down the recommended whole wheat flour -- Community Grains hard red winter wheat -- which can be found in select Whole Foods in their bulk foods section.

Here's a pic, with the country white to the left for comparison:



I think next time I'll let it go for a little bit longer in the covered dutch oven -- maybe 35 instead of 30 minutes. The dough has so much water in it that I'd like to have it set a bit more on the interior, and I have a feeling it's better to do it covered to keep it from burning the top?

I used to do the dutch oven bit but it's been a few years. Your pics have me convinced to do it again. I did bake a couple of small loaves today for only the second or third ime in a year.

Post a pic of your results!

Decided to try the no-knead Challah for Easter - it's my very first time making bread, and the smell is incredible! Have to wait for it to cool before I can slice it - can't wait to make sandwiches with it ...




This no-knead recipe surpassed all my expectations - it was super-easy, and the dough rose really well all on it's own, the bread smell isn't something you'll ever get from store-bought - and this only costed something like 60c to make! At the store loaves like this sell for about $3.50 in Toronto, so the savings are huge.

Wish I'd known to take better care to roll out the dough a little more smoothly so it'd be pretty-looking like at the store, but am pretty happy with the way this loaf turned out for a first-time effort. Not as hard as I thought it would be


PS Skunkworks, that whole wheat sourdough looks fantastic - not too 'wheaty'

Had a chance to taste the bread, and it's very tasty, but more dense than the super-light and airy store-bought bread - it's sort of a cross between a bread machine loaf and a quick-bread?

Made a western grilled cheese sandwich with the bread, and it was very rich and indulgent - you could taste the honey, and the egg added depth:



Was only able to finish half the sandwich before feeling like I needed a nap lol - not sure this would work as an every day sandwich bread, but as a treat it's really nice.

How is everybody else eating their bread? Are people making sandwiches as well, or eating it with butter as a side to meals, etc?

The sourdough boules I've been baking are seemingly not that ideal for sandwiches because of their size and shape and the open crumb (i.e. big air bubbles). However, I tried it with some leftover corned beef and whole grain mustard and it was really good.

I'm going to try out that challah recipe sometime soon.

Corned beef on homemade sourdough sounds amazing

But I can see what you're saying about the bread being a bit awkward for a sandwich too.

Had half a slice of the egg bread with some Boursin cheese on top and it tasted a bit (a lot!) like a Red Lobster biscuit - maybe that's the best way to enjoy these homemade breads ... as a side slice to a soup/salad or entree?

this looks SOOOOOOOOO good dude.

I'm really glad that I bumped this thread. I think I'm gonna try that challah pretty soon, maybe on Tuesday. I need to start using my yeast since I bought the 2 pounder at Costco, but I'm mostly going with the sourdough when I bake.

lol


Before getting a sandwich machine, I spent a lot of time looking at hot sandwich recipes, and stumbled upon a couple of great sites outlining how to make the perfect grilled cheese sandwich - with the buttery golden crust, and the gooey melted cheese

The Food Lab Turbo: How To Make The Best Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Cooking in a Closet-sized Kitchen: How to Make The Perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich


Some highlights from the articles:

• it's the butter, not high heat, that makes the bread golden
• so it's important to generously butter the bread
• and grill the sandwich slowly on low heat, rather than medium (in a pre-heated pan) to get that deep rich golden texture
• also this gives the cheese time to melt before the bread is done
• grated cheese that's been brought to room temperature melts faster, although it's more messy
• and if the bread's still done before the cheese (due to thick bread, etc), the sandwich can be baked in the oven until the cheese melts, and the bread should stay crispy

Have made the same sandwich on fresh, soft, thick-cut, hand-sliced, bread from the store, and it was pretty yum too

Thanks so much for bumping up this thread

Next I'm thinking of trying to make one of the artisan boules

CHALLAH TIME









My braiding skills are turrible. This was delicious, but I want it a little sweeter next time. I'll probably give the King Arthur recipe a shot.

skunk: Holy ****, your non-challah breads are amazing enough to make me consider actually making some bread! And your challah looks great too, just not nearly as amazing as the other stuff.

Trusty: Damn, that is some good looking challah!

dont have a dutch oven but i do have a large le creuset pot with a lid, is this an acceptable substitute?

Thanks, El Diablo Looks like these no-knead bread recipes are pretty forgiving, if my first effort wound up more like a cornbread than a real loaf - and was still tasty

skunkworks', your challah does look amazing! nom nom Will have to keep practicing my bread-making so my bread will hopefully start turning out more like yours - cooking's a fun hobby to have

Le creuset pots with lids are Dutch ovens, so you should be good.

I will continue working on the challah, but I think that it's time to make some focaccia!

Grunching a bit with this response. Naan bread is the wifey's favorite so I tried making it, and it was easy and delicious. I make a good pizza dough so I'm not a total novice, but I think even for a beginner this would be easy.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/naan/

The video that goes along with that recipe is probably helpful to watch for newbs.
Also, 4.5 cups of flour was too much, so use 4 and kneed in more until it's right.
I don't have a grill pan, but a normal pan worked just fine.

Challah in a bread pan tilts me a lot. Thanks for the advice, will bake a loaf today

Tried making a half-batch of artisan boule recipe for my second loaf of bread (ever) - as a total bread noob, the whole hot cast iron pot looked like kind of complicated, but this wound up being not so hard. The texture and taste of my loaf turned out *exactly* like the $4 baguettes they sell at Ace Bakery Artisan Breads in Toronto - the look of the bread ... not so much


Guess the pics are the best part of these food threads, but my loaf didn't turn out very presentable lol ... this cross-section is the best I could do with what turned out:



The crust got nice and crunchy, and the inside had a nice rise, and was light and chewy, exactly as promised - it was so thrilling to have this loaf turn out tasting as good (better?) as a high-end store-bought loaf! For about 60c again


You know what else was fun about making this loaf too, was the whole science experiment feel of having that great reaction from the yeast, after mixing it with just a couple of ingredients:

Gif inside of dough rising (not my dough)



Oh, you know what pic I can show you of the bread ... it made a really nice open-faced sandwich for brunch - think I liked this scrambled egg and cheese sandwich even more than the last one! (pictured above)




Am eager to make another loaf soon! Yum yum May try making a baguette with the dough next

awesome stuff skunk and trusty. beautiful pics. are those sweet potatoes in that pic? i don't think i've ever had that in a breakfasty context. think i need to have that sometime soon.

Ya, they are


Don't remember how I wound up finding this recipe, but I got it from the Dr.Oz website, and it was pretty tasty:

Sweet Potato Hash


It's fun to look for new recipes with all the pictures and stuff, but sometimes I can be a little lazy about following them to a T So my hash only actually has the first 5 ingredients (with just regular onions), and I didn't bother to measure any of those out - guess it's hard to go wrong with a hash


It tasted pretty similar to the Pioneer Woman's Best Breakfast Potatoes Ever - just a tiny bit sweeter, but not too much.


They'd probably have been even better fried with a lil bacon grease But they were still good without it lol

The no-knead pizza turned out so good on this site, I decided to try making pizza with the other half of dough left over from yesterday - with mixed results :

Simply So Good - Another Use for No-Knead Bread Dough: Pizza


From the top, everything looks okay ...




But from the side ... woahhhh, not so much - so puffy, yikes!




Not sure what happened lol - may have let the dough sit for too long on the second rise, or may have used too much and not made it thin enough? It looks like a hubcap! But it tasted not bad - just a bit on the bready side ... gonna keep practicing some more ...

I tried to make some burger rolls a couple of days ago and just finished them off. I used the commercial yeast rather than my starter, and I wasn't following any recipe. I just glanced at a couple of white bread recipes online and then threw together a couple of cups of flour, some yeast, water and milk, melted butter, an egg, a bit of sugar, and then added flour until the dough felt right. Being that I have limited experience with commercial yeast, except with respect to pizza doughs, I wasn't really sure how long to proof, or how large to make my shaped rolls. They ended up huge and a little dense, but I'm probably going to be doing this regularly until I get it right, because they were as tasty as could be.