White Loaves: Tuesdays with Dorie is "Baking with Julia" and So Am I (. . . albeit a little late)

Yesterday was a bad day. My horoscope even said so. Always trust the horoscope. As I was checking in on the blog rolls, I read a new post on White Loaves for the Tuesdays with Dorie group and my oop-sie! bell went off. I immediately headed over to my trusty wall calendar where all things Vegan Thyme are posted and yep, there it was, right above "guitar lesson" and below another appointment (that was probably contributing to this 'mood' I was having) was "TWD/BWJ white loaves". Well, it was still early. I had time to whip up a loaf of bread together for crying out loud. Never mind that I had a migraine. Woman UP! So the flour began flying, the Kitchen Aid cranking and soon the yeast smell filled my kitchen, my happy hormones crept back in. Nonetheless, I kept the bottle of ibuprofen and sinus pills at the ready. Like I said, it was a bad one yesterday.

Well. I am once again part of a "group", but of bakers this time. Still within the Dorie Greenspan crowd. And yes, I do love her and all of her cooking/baking wisdom. And yes, you may remember a moment in time when I had joined yet another Dorie fan base to churn out the recipes in the Around My French Table book. And then, sadly, I went rogue. I'll be honest, while the romantic notion of vegan-izing an entire French food cookbook intrigued me, I fell flat on several recipes where no amount of plant-based substituting would suffice. There were some bad, not-to-be-photographed and shared moments. So, I quietly bowed out and. . . away. But I STILL love the cookbook. Love it. I'm not a vegan who shuns all non-vegan cookbooks. My feelings on the vegan cookbook options out there have been aired here before. I will just leave it at that for now.

Baking with Julia is a cookbook that every woman worth her salt should own. Period. (As is the Baking cookbook by Dorie herself--which was the impetus for this whole Tuesdays with Dorie group.) The BWJ cookbook is where my go-to pie crust recipe came from: the link to it is here. Still ranks as one of my most read blog posts. I swear by this crust. So when I happened upon this new group forming to bake their way through this treasure trove of yum, well, I jumped in, sending an email declaring that not only do I own the BWJ book, but also own the accompanying DVD by that same name. (All of the recipes in the book were made in Julia's kitchen and aired on PBS. It's is classic and I could watch it over and over again.)  

We've not had plain white bread in our house since 1997. That's just a "rule". So when I discovered this was going to be the first recipe, I knew I'd be making a few changes. Namely, I'd be incorporating white whole wheat flour and a smattering of regular whole wheat, and then took it up another notch and added my best friend: cinnamon. I couldn't be more pleased with this bread. I just baked whole wheat cinnamon raisin bread a few weeks ago. The timing for baking another loaf of bread was perfect. But not a white loaf. The difference in this loaf from the loaf I made earlier this month is that this one is just pure pillow pleasure. It baked up so beautifully that I was sort of sorry I didn't go the white loaf method, thinking it would make a wonderful grilled cheese. Oh well. Instead, I enjoyed it toasted this morning covered in Earth Balance butter. Yum. Loved this bread.

The dough-shaping for the first rise.

The dough in the container for the first rise. Uh, I forgot to take a pic of it after it doubled in size within about an hour or so. I blame the migraine.

This is where I roll it out and add my friend cinnamon. Had to. Just had to. Roll the loaf up, pinch the seams closed, place in pan--wait for second rise. *I also halved the recipe and went with one loaf. I was most surprised by how quickly this loaf recipe came together. From mixing to the second rise and final baking--three hours. And we keep the house pretty chilly. Placing the loaf covered and on top of the fridge helps. It's the only warm place in the house, really, unless you count the fireplace.

Waiting. . .

Wow! I pulled this down from the top of my fridge and was quite impressed and knew then I'd have a lovely loaf of bread very soon.

And I did. Yum. Double yum.

If you're interested in joining or baking along with the group, head over to this site, Tuesdays with Dorie. My substitutions for making only one loaf were the following: used 1 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, 1 1/8 cup white whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour. No big vegan adaptations here other than the butter part and my using unsalted vegetable margerine. So very pleased.