First attempt at baking bread from scratch, part 2

So the results were… mostly ok.

After 15min at (slightly under) 230°C I had to drop it down to 195 for another half an hour or so. At this point I put the “buns” in on a lower tray too. The temperature promptly dropped down to 150 and refused to budge, so I switched from the bottom element to the top element for a while. Which didn’t raise the temperature much but instead started to REALLY brown the top of the loaf.

Aah!

So I switched back down to the bottom and hoped for the best.

Once the time was up the top was quite springy and sounded hollow around the edges but a little less so in the middle. I stuck a skewer in and it came out clean though so figured it was time to call it on my experiment and pull everything out (the buns were looking decidedly dark around the edges too).

The bread was pretty flat in the middle but not too bad-looking. Smelled great too! Woohoo!

Slight problem.

Yep. It was stuck to the damn tin. *sigh*

After much shaking and bashing I decided to sacrifice one end of the loaf and cut out a chunk so I could slide a scraper under there. End result?

Ta-daa!

It’s quite yeasty and still a little moist (probably could have done with 5 more minutes or so) but pretty fluffy and delicious. As for the buns? They ended up flat and crunchy – but not in an unpleasant way.

Methinks I’ll be making soup with croutons this evening. They’re exactly the right texture for that – or even really crusty garlic bread! Mm-mmm.

So considering I was aiming for this:

and I ended up with this:

I’m tentatively calling it a win.

Next time: less yeast, more flour, the right amount of potato starch (that stuff is seriously gold when you’re aiming for a light, fluffy texture) – and a silicon pan! But for now? Bon appetit!