some days you have to follow the rules

As you may remember reading here, I was delighted when we got our new stove with a convection oven a little over a year ago. I immediately got back into bread baking. Once I was in the routine again I stopped following recipes and began to wing it. I knew the correct proportions, so the loaves I baked turned out anywhere from OK to really good.

Recently I had just gotten my King Arthur order, for which I had to wait an unusually long time due to our COVID-19 world. I had ordered two bags of artisanal bread flour and I wanted to do something a little special.

I pulled out my copy of Rustic European Bread from Your Bread Machine, which I believe was out of print for a while, but seems to be available again, and in fact now has a second edition. I have not used a bread machine since our Gilroy kitchen remodel in 2007, but I use the book’s ingredients and proportions and then make bread the traditional way with my KitchenAid stand mixer and convection oven. I selected the recipe for pain de mie, French street bread. I used (a bit less than) half King Arthur artisan bread flour and (a bit more than) half generic grocery store bread flour.

The loaf turned out well. Terry loved it.

Some days it works out well when you follow the rules.