♣

This soft, yet substantial bread is moist, yet not doughy. It has a pleasant, mild flavor with a hearty nuance. It’s a canvas ready to be painted on with condiments, meats, cheeses, and spreads. It’s got the PBJ-readiness you need, but it’s backed up with character … as if to say, if I’m going to be white, I’m going to be goddamned Betty White.

♣

Makes 2 loaves

White Bread, Lying, and Tardiness

You must grapple with two issues: your oven is a liar, and your bread has no sense of punctuality. Your oven says it will preheat in 10 minutes; it’s lying. Shamelessly. My oven’s manual admonishes me for an assumed desire to use an independent thermometer, because “opening the oven door to check it will throw off the temperature.” As if it wouldn’t occur to me to look through the oven window. It takes my oven at least 20 minutes to come to 375˚F; I give it a full half-hour. When the oven’s ten-minute “ding” tells me that the preheat time is up, I think about swearing and cursing that at lying MOFO just on principle, but I don’t do it. Swearing at it makes me look abusive, and that could encourage the other appliances to start siding with the oven. That’s all we need.

Consequences

Bake It Like a Man!

Let’s talk about the bread. Look, it’s going to rise when it rises. It doesn’t matter how many times I say, “Honey, we’re leaving in an hour.” “Honey, we’re leaving in twenty minutes.” “Honey, we’re about to leave.” When it comes time to leave, I’m going to be standing there by the door, and the bread’s going to go, “Oh my gosh, what time is it? Do we have to leave already? I’m hardly even dressed yet.” Then we’re going to walk out the door late and get almost to the garage before I hear, “Oh no, I forgot my [whatever].” What I mean to say is that the bread will take its own time to rise, depending on many factors. There are some tricks you can use to try and coax it to rise on a timetable more suitable to you, but I find that I get better results when I just let it do what it needs to do on its own terms. (Which is the same advice I give myself in that other 🙂 situation.) Be patient. Slower bread tastes better. There are ways to force bread to rise, but when you practice such dark arts, there are always consequences.

Click here to read more, and to find the recipe.