Baking day

I had an urge to bake bread this weekend, so I flipped through my Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook, thinking that I'd seen a recipe in there, and lo and behold, a Honey White Bread recipe came up. It was very exciting.

First, I heated up milk, butter, and honey


Meanwhile, the yeast bloomed in warm water with some sugar


2 egg yolks await their turn in the mixer


Along with the flour and salt - I try to use Gold Medal whenever financial possible (if you've not heard the story why and care, let me know)



All ingredients aboard...



Sigh - this page of my book takes it first baking battle wound


More flour is added and the dough hook is a-whirrin'


I kneaded for a few minutes by hand until I had a smooth, even dough




One hour of rising in a warm spot, we have a larger blob of dough


Then an hour rise in their respective pans


40 minutes later, golden brown and ready for eating!


This was pretty good bread - I didn't get as much lift as I expected - so it was still a fairly dense bread - but it is good for toast and would make excellent croutons I imagine. For a sandwich, unless sliced PAPER thin, it would probably be too dense. I may try this, or a similar recipe again, and rely significantly less on the Kitchenaid's dough hook and more on my own hand kneading, but we'll see. It was fun regardless!