Armed with a new baking stone and peel, a kitchenaid mixer and an old wooden bowl for rising, I'm going to bake bread this year and blog about it. I'm starting off with a simple sweet potato white loaf from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, who has never steered me wrong.
The bread starts with a sponge, then has two rises in the bowl, then it's into the loaf pan. It's a smooth, shiny dough that rises nicely. It baked beautifully with a nice oven spring. I took in out of the oven, popped it out of the pan, and fumbled it, dropping the loaf on the counter, flipping the hot loaf pan over onto my arm, giving myself a nice burn.
The bread is slightly dented but very yummy. Not as much depth of flavour as if I'd let the sponge sit overnight instead of just for an hour, but still very good. We polished off nearly the whole loaf with a nice fish chowder.
Now, off to start a biga for tomorrow.
