Bread Illustrated by America's Test Kitchen

PamelaSue72 · ‎09-22-2011

I made my first recipe from Bread Illustrated today. Caramelized Onion Bread. You know, America's Test Kitchen has a reputation for lots of unnecessary steps and using lots of unnecessary utensils and bowls. And I really saw that in this recipe.

The bread? What a total pain in the butt. Oh, it was good bread, but geez. Such a pain to go through all the steps. I started with the starter at 7:30 this morning and it was baking at 4:30. Make the starter and let it go for six hours. Make the dough and let it go for 30 minutes. Fold the dough and let it go for another 30 minutes. Fold the dough again and then let it go for 1.25 hours. Shape the dough in a floured towel in a colander and let it go for 1.25 hours. Finally you can bake your bread. (I didn't use the floured towel or the colander. I formed the bread in a large Fiesta bowl and it worked fine.)

But wait! Preheat the oven with the stone. Put in two cake pans full of lava rocks in the oven (yes, lava rocks). When ready, carefully get the loaf onto the pizza peel and then put the loaf onto the preheated stone. Put one-half cup of boiling water into one of the lava-filled pans. Shut oven door for one minute. Open oven door, put one-half cup of boiling water into the other lava-filled pan. Shut the oven door. This is to create steam.

And there was absolutely, positively no way I was doing that. Ridiculous by anybody's standpoint. I use Peter Reinhart's method for creating steam in the oven when baking bread and it's never failed me. So that's what I did. A dry pan in the oven. Put the bread in and crank the temp up to give the bread a bit of oompf to rise. Pour one cup of water in the pan and shut the door. A minute later, use a spray bottle to spray the inside of the oven. A minute later, do it again. Then turn the oven temp back down to where it should be. Easy peasy. And it works. No dealing with lava-filled pans.

And the bread was delicious. It had a really good chew and the inside was perfect.

While I will work my way through the book, I certainly won't be doing all those steps. That's a good way to make even an avid baker start to hate baking. And that defeats the whole purpose, IMO.

3suwm5 · ‎06-15-2016

@PamelaSue72 You know I used to like 'homemade' bread, until I read this. That type of work for bread, I'll go to a bakery or Paneras, or, or, or.

Nice job on the patience, for that task. You deserve a gold star!!!

deeva · ‎03-09-2010

I have several cookbooks from America's Test Kitchen. I've determined that many of their recipes have so many steps that it's not worth the effort.

Kachina624 · ‎03-10-2010

You must have a lot of time on your hands and a patient disposition.

New Mexico☀️Land Of Enchantment

Sooner · ‎03-10-2010

An oven repairman told me when I have something that will rise in the oven, preheat the oven 10 or 15 degrees below the baking temp then raise it to the baking temp when the bread or cake goes in.

The logic is great and it works! The oven gets up to the desired temp then shuts off until the temp falls anough to make it come back on. So, unless the oven is on a heating cycle when the bread goes in, it will just sit there and cool down when the bread goes in. If is a little cool then you set the temp up, the heat comes on and your bread gets its start when the heat is on!

PamelaSue72 · ‎09-22-2011

@Kachina624 wrote:
You must have a lot of time on your hands and a patient disposition.

I had the day off work for Veterans' Day and when I'm off work, I like to spend it in the kitchen. While I was working on the bread, I was also working on a recipe from All About Braising by Molly Stevens. I made Zinfandel Pot Roast with Glazed Carrots and Fresh Sage from that book. It was awesome. Such a good recipe. The meat was very tender and DH said he thought it was delicious. Simple frosted chocolate brownies for dessert.

While the bread was delicious, the work involved bordered on the ridiculous and it really took away from the bread itself. As I said, I love to make bread, but when you have to go through that many steps (and knowing that they're not really necessary), it takes a lot of the fun away. Ridiculous. Pans of lava rocks. *SMH* No way.

I've had both cookbooks for a while now and have been waiting for the weather to get cooler so that I could play around with them.

peachesncream · ‎03-13-2010

@PamelaSue72 wrote:
I made my first recipe from Bread Illustrated today. Caramelized Onion Bread. You know, America's Test Kitchen has a reputation for lots of unnecessary steps and using lots of unnecessary utensils and bowls. And I really saw that in this recipe.

Thanks for the review - very interesting, and also entertaining!

I mostly think CI recipes aren't worth the trouble. A ton of extra effort for minimal improvement in results. Sometimes I just disagree with them.

Once I watched them make sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving on a TV episode, and they boiled the cut-up potatoes. Sweet potatoes have a better taste when they're roasted (it's also a lot easier). That's just one example. I've also disagreed with some of their recommendations about equipment.

My favorite cookbook author is Ina Garten. She has a gift for making cooking easy and straightforward - the opposite of CI.

Back to baking bread. I'd love to dip into that. But it seems you have to have a heavy duty mixer to bake bread or rolls using current recipes. I have a very old, weak mixer and don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a new one. I think I'd need to work with an older cookbook, from back when people kneaded by hand.

peachesncream · ‎03-13-2010

@Sooner wrote:
An oven repairman told me when I have something that will rise in the oven, preheat the oven 10 or 15 degrees below the baking temp then raise it to the baking temp when the bread or cake goes in.

This is a great idea! Thanks for sharing it.

Sooner · ‎03-10-2010

@peachesncream wrote:
@PamelaSue72 wrote:
I made my first recipe from Bread Illustrated today. Caramelized Onion Bread. You know, America's Test Kitchen has a reputation for lots of unnecessary steps and using lots of unnecessary utensils and bowls. And I really saw that in this recipe.

Thanks for the review - very interesting, and also entertaining!

I mostly think CI recipes aren't worth the trouble. A ton of extra effort for minimal improvement in results. Sometimes I just disagree with them.

Once I watched them make sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving on a TV episode, and they boiled the cut-up potatoes. Sweet potatoes have a better taste when they're roasted (it's also a lot easier). That's just one example. I've also disagreed with some of their recommendations about equipment.

My favorite cookbook author is Ina Garten. She has a gift for making cooking easy and straightforward - the opposite of CI.

Back to baking bread. I'd love to dip into that. But it seems you have to have a heavy duty mixer to bake bread or rolls using current recipes. I have a very old, weak mixer and don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a new one. I think I'd need to work with an older cookbook, from back when people kneaded by hand.

@peachesncream

Actually, there are modern "no knead" recipes that are quite good, and you really can knead bread by hand without killing yourself. You just need to work with softer dough, not really really stiff. King Arthur Flour has a lot of good recipes. Look through them and try your hand at it! And bread machines knead the dough for you too, and you can shape and bake it any way you like.

The more modern bread cookbooks by and harge have better recipes and FAR FAR better photos and instructions. Then there is YouTube to watch people!

peachesncream · ‎03-13-2010

@peachesncream

Actually, there are modern "no knead" recipes that are quite good, and you really can knead bread by hand without killing yourself. You just need to work with softer dough, not really really stiff. King Arthur Flour has a lot of good recipes. Look through them and try your hand at it! And bread machines knead the dough for you too, and you can shape and bake it any way you like.

The more modern bread cookbooks by and harge have better recipes and FAR FAR better photos and instructions. Then there is YouTube to watch people!

Thanks for these great ideas, Sooner!

Baking with yeast (rolls and breads) is going to be one of my projects for 2017. It sounds a lot more doable than I thought.