The BakerLady is baking bread....

I know my love of bread hasn’t gone unnoticed around here but I really do love making my own bread. My sister came to have a holiday here in the UK as you know and before she left I ordered a few items that I thought would hold me in good stead over here. I know there are just some things you cannot get in this country (well you can but obviously at a ridiculous price!).

She got a small carry-on piece of luggage at one of the charity shops there and I quite happily filled it with goodies that I ordered on-line and had sent to her. It was far cheaper than her re-sending it to me via the post and well so much more to pack into the luggage!

So I found this Pain de Mie Pan (Pullman Loaf Pan) over at King Arthur, which had a good many qualities to its name – namely that King Arthur is selling it means quality, it has 65% recycled steel in it (all those cans you put in the recycle bin are coming back without having to damage the Earth harvesting them!), an eco-friendly replacement to non-stick which I’m trying to avoid and more attributes.

So this past weekend I made a loaf of bread with this new pan – it’s a mixture of white flour and brown malted which I like making. It’s not 100% brown loaf since I cannot have that often but enough to give it some good taste along with as usual my starter in there. I made a bit more than I’d use for my traditional loaf pan since this one is quite long (thankfully it fit into my oven as it should – I was a bit worried!).

This is the pan with my bread just going into it for its second rise. I let it get to nearly the top (about ½ inch from the top) when I clamped on the lid and put it in the oven. I read a few reviews that the lid popped off but mine did not and the loaf came out like a breeze. I must admit it didn’t fill out the pan as much as I had imagined but then again I didn’t do a measured batch – I just eye-balled it (scales are on the fritz!) and guess at how much I’d needed for the pan.And this is the loaf as it came out of the oven and then out of the pan completely cooling. I really got the pan to have more even slices of toast that fit into the toaster but also to have some that I could slice and put into the freeze for those times when you want toast but as usual is the case no bread! I don’t keep too much bread in the freeze as its valuable space in our household but a few slices won’t take much room and serves a purpose when you are trying to quickly gather a lunch at 7am!So go on try your hand at something new. Baking bread seems so mysterious when you combine only four ingredients and out comes something unbelievably lovely. You’ll be hooked I guarantee it!