My 59th experiment: Back to basics

When I talked about French toast, my husband said, "Oh! yum. I grew up with that!" What a nice thing to have for breakfast! But to make French toast, we need staled white bread. So here comes our white bread. I'm glad to have purchased the KAF cook book. Now I can try out their recipe and make a reasonable comparison.

Recipe: White bread (1 medium loaf)

Ingredients
- 3 cups KAF all purpose flour
- 1+1/4 tp salt
- 3 TB sugar
- 3 TB melted butter
- 1/4 cup potato flour
- about 1 cup cold 1% milk
- 2 tp active dry yeast

Procedure:
1. Mix yeast in 1/4 cup milk. (Not a very effective way to proof the yeast, but better than just adding the active dry yeast directly into dough)
2. Melt butter.
3. Mix flour, salt sugar and potato milk thoroughly in a medium bowl.
4. Add the yeast and milk mixture into the bowl. Mix with the flour to form a dough. Add milk progressively, about 1/4 cup each time, until the dough is formed. It may take a little while for the hydration to become uniform. Resultant dough is very soft, smooth and elastic. If dough is sticky, add a little flour.
5. Allow dough to rest for 10-30 minutes. Then add melted butter into the dough. Rub and knead until all the butter has worked into the dough, and the dough becomes smooth and not shining with a layer of grease any more.
6. Place dough in bowl, cover with plastic, and allow to rest in a warm place until volume doubles. About 1-2 hours.
7. Punch down the dough. Fold it a few times and shape it into a log. Place the log in a 8..5"x4.5" loaf pan. Cover top with plastic. Allow to proof again, until dough rises to about 1" over the rim of the pan.
8. Preheat oven to 350F.
9. Bake loaf for 35-40 minutes. After the first 10-15 minutes, cover with foil.

Results:
9:50am, ingredients:

10:10am, initial mixture of yeast, milk and dry ingredients:

10:17am, dough formed without oil:

10:20am, dough sticky to hand, needed 2 TB of flour for adjustment:

10:41am, dough with 3 TB of melted butter rubbed in, ready to proof:

11:19am, dough rested 30 minutes:

12:58pm, dough rested 2 hours:

1:42pm, dough rested 3 hours:

1:42pm, dough being gently de-gased:

1:42pm, dough with a silky texture:

1:45pm, dough finished punching:

1:49pm, dough shaped into a log to proof in pan:

1:49pm, dough's height before proofing:

4:06pm, dough risen 2 hours and 15 minutes:

4:07pm, dough's risen height:

4:07pm, dough's bubbles to be pinched away:

4:12pm, dough brushed with milk:

4:12pm, dough ready to bake:

4:13pm, dough's height just before baking:

4:35pm, loaf baked 22 minutes:

4:58pm, loaf baked 40 minutes:

4:58pm, loaf's internal temperature exceeded 190F:

4:58pm, loaf's edge detached from pan:

4:58pm, thermometer coming out very clean:

4:58pm, loaf's height:

4:59pm, loaf's top:

4:59pm, loaf's bottom:

5:00pm, loaf's side:

5:01pm, loaf's heel:

5:01pm, loaf's length:

5:03pm, loaf's crust starting to wrinkle just 5 minutes out of the oven:

7:38pm, loaf cooled 2 hours and 40 minutes, in the open oven; crown remains high after cooling:

7:40pm, loaf being sliced, neatly and nicely done without fuss:

7:44pm, 15 slices (thick slices on both heels):

7:45pm, beautiful silken, milky white crumb with a shade of gold:

7:45pm, thin amber crust that is neither hard nor soft; it's just tight like a layer of skin that wraps around the flesh of the bread:

7:45pm, a center-of-loaf slice:

7:46pm, a heel-of-loaf slice:

7:49pm, a bite on the heel, so good even by itself:

7:53pm, wrapped to freeze:

7:53pm, still too reluctant to let the bread go... I'm obsessed!

Observations:
1. Wow! This is an impression loaf! I love its color so very much.
2. The oven spring is spectacular!
3. As expected, the crust collapses a little within 5 minutes after coming out of the oven. I decide to keep it in the open oven to cool gradually.
4. Look at how beautiful the crumb and the crust are!

This loaf is a revelation! Its crumb has such a fine color: that of milky white blended with a beautiful tint of gold. The crust is pure amber, thin, neither hard not chewy, just a little tight. Talking about aroma, the warm sweetness of it is unmistakable while it is being baked; and it linger in subtlety for hours after. You'd notice there has been fresh bread the moment you step in to the house. Oh, as for flavor: tender like silk, neither noticeably sweet nor salty, just the perfect blend of milk, sugar and salt at its finest, with a light shade of butter!

Just one bite on this simple white bread, and you'll understand why the white flour has been the elite food since the Romans days, and has remained so for nearly 20 centuries. How sad that the popular culture considers white flour to be junk food today! Whatever they tell you, your own palate is still the best judge.