Bread

Well tonight I added another notch to my "cooking" belt. I made bread for the first time. I followed the recipe I found over at the "simple dollar" with one small modification, I used soymilk instead of regular milk. Overall, it turned out well I guess. But for some reason the dough did not rise as much as I thought it should have according to the photos on the simple dollar website. I used a steel mixing bowl, and perhaps it cooled off too fast for when I mixed the yeast? I wasn't sure of the exact amount of water to add either to the original yeast amount.
The crust was tough as a rock! This thing feels like a lead weight! But once I cut a slice it tasted really good. I think I was impatient too and didn't let the oven pre-heat long enough, I had to cook it an extra 20 minutes longer than what they said (30 min). So all in all, this took me about 3-4 hours to make one loaf of bread, I could have driven up to new york city and back in that time! But to be fair, 2 hours of that was spent waiting for the dough to rise. and 50 min spent waiting for it to bake.
I'm not totally discourage, because I think I want to try this again with a different kind of yeast (I used the instant pack), and also I'd like to try a better flour (I used all purpose), I'd like to try a good whole wheat next time.
But for a first try, I'm pretty happy.
Now I've got to hurry up and eat it, cause the website said it'll only last for about 3 days since there are no preservatives in it.
Oh, and I really need to buy myself a serrated knife for next time.

totally unrelated, but worth mentioning, while waiting for all this to take place, I watched a dvd that I had seen in the theater some time ago... the motorcycle diaries. This is an awesome movie! Just a tad bit long, but really good stuff - go rent it!

Tech Tags: bread loaf cooking baking simple+dollar movie motorcycle+diaries che