It's been a long time since I tried making bread in Singapore. I mean, remember what happened last time?
But I used to make bread fairly often and Kyle has been asking for bread for a few weeks now. So the other day at the library (my favorite place) I found a new bread cookbook. You know the Indian cookbook I'm obsessed with? Well the same authors made a bread cookbook, so I grabbed it. They have lots of yummy-sounding stuff in there, but we started with a basic sandwich bread, one they said they have in their kitchen all the time--a white bread with sunflower and pumpkin seeds mixed in.
Last night Kyle finally found unbleached all purpose flour in the third grocery store we tried, so we attempted to get this started. Sadly, we did not get full photographic evidence, but TEN CUPS of flour in and the dough was still super wet and sticky. And huge. And all over our counter top. So we gave up.
We put it in a bowl and sat it on the ironing board in our bedroom to rise overnight (because our bedroom is the coolest place in the apartment).
This morning Kyle woke up to a dramatic gasp that I'm pretty sure was not his favorite way to start the day. The dough had grown out of its bowl, over the edges and was pooling on the ironing board.
We scooped it up and took it back in the kitchen, kneaded it with MORE flour (still wet; still sticky) and divided it up. The dough is supposed to make 4 loaves, and I had one loaf pan. So it was going to be one at a time.
I put the first loaf in. After the required cooking time, I tried to take it out. The instructions said "Tip the bread onto a cooling rack." My bread was not tipping. It was not budging. Finally after basically clawing it out by hand I realized why. The bread and the pan had become one.
Ugh. Pan ruined. Bread ruined. Three growing dough blobs still on my counter.
So I punched them down and put them in cleaned yogurt containers and stuck them in the fridge because I had work to do. The cold is supposed to stop the yeast but to be extra sure they stayed put, I stacked them.
An hour later I went to pour a glass of water and the dough had opened the yogurt containers and was escaping. The containers were wedged so tightly to the top of the fridge I had a hard time pulling them out, actually.
So I punched the dough down again, and ran to the baking store to buy two more bread pans. This time I oiled and floured the pans extra well and cooked the bread for a bit less time.
Finally. Actual bread. The kitchen is a disaster, but at least they are no longer expanding.
It's pretty yummy. The crumb could have been a little more open, but that may be because I had to punch it down so many times before I got the right pans.
We had a simple dinner of homemade bread, cheese, and salami last night. It was great. As for the contents of that particular yogurt container... I'll have to let Kyle tell you about that.
(And I haven't broken the cook top yet. This, of course, is a win in and of itself!)