Grandmas Bread: American baking

I'm back! I didn't have a lot of time to bake in July as I was on holiday in America for two weeks. However being on holiday didn't stop me from baking! 

My Grandma who lives in America makes the best bread I have ever tasted. The recipe was passed down from her Grandma and is incomparable to any other bread, it's just mouth wateringly delicious and I was desperate to be able to recreate it for myself! 

For Christmas she put together a hamper of all the ingredients I needed to make her special bread, known as Grandmas Bread. Bread is renowned for being very difficult to master and my first attempt didn't go very well; I ended up with two bricks - rock solid. My error was that I had killed the yeast by using water that was too hot so it didn't rise during proving. So she kindly offered to give me a master class in Grandmas bread baking while I was visiting. 

She made it look so simple. So I decided to try it again on my own, while the master class was still fresh in my mind. I'm pleased to say that this time was significantly better and the bread was actually edible, which is always a good sign when baking! I didn't kill the yeast so the dough more than doubled in size. 

It still isn't perfect because it didn't rise over the top of the bread pans as it should. I think this might be because I didn't wait for the yeast to activate for quite long enough. Also the room temperature and humidity has a big impact on bread. My Grandmas kitchen has air conditioning but obviously in England that is rarely needed. Although at the moment the weather has been unexpectedly warm and so I was baking with the door open, who knows what impact that will have had! 

This is what the perfect loaf of Grandmas bread should look like...

And this was my attempt...














Mine doesn't have the same curl over the top - No muffin top. But bread will not defeat me!

 Hopefully third time lucky! Until then I will enjoy it with some peach jam. 

Xx