almost white loaves
February 7, 2012 § 22 Comments
TWD bakers kicked off 2012 in the Baking with Julia cookbook with Craig Kominiak’s “White Loaves”, a simple and relatively quick yeasted pan bread. Since we rarely eat white bread at home (although my husband loves baloney on white bread with yellow mustard sandwiches), I added some whole grain flour to the two batches I made. I made honey whole wheat and whole wheat cinnamon raisin variations of the recipe. The cinnamon raisin bread was great for breakfast toast, and even kept well (since I was toasting it) for almost a week. The honey whole wheat was just slightly sweet, so made a good sandwich loaf; I froze it sliced since I knew it wouldn’t be in the freezer for more than couple of weeks. I made a couple of adjustments for altitude (5000′), the whole grain flours and to make a moister bread. I only used 6 of the 7 cups of flour, 1 1/2 cups of that as whole wheat or a blend of whole wheat and emmer. I like a longer rise time (to develop flavor and texture) so used less yeast (2 teaspoons) and only used warm water for the first 1/2 cup, the rest was room temperature. I melted the butter (make sure it’s not too hot) and added it to the yeast mixture just before the flour just to avoid the mess of kneading the butter in later. I let the dough bulk rise twice, since it was now a wetter dough. After the loaves proofed, I scored them before baking (I like the look and the bread usually has better oven rise), and had a pan of hot water in the oven to provide steam during baking. For the honey whole wheat I substituted honey for the sugar; for the cinnamon raisin I increased the sugar to 1/4 cup and added the zest of an orange to the dough. I also made a flat icing to drizzle over the loaves after they cooled from the orange juice and some powdered sugar. It almost tasted like coffee cake!
Melted butter in yeast and water mixture
Sprinkle cinnamon sugar and raisins over dough before rolling into a log shape
Roll into “logs”
Fold ends over
Place seams down in buttered loaf pan
Almost doubled and fully proofed
Score just before baking
Just out of the oven
Sweet! Glazed with orange icing
The first slice
The last slice, toasted
cook reach grow 
Now you’re just showing off 😉
Making this was the first time in a long time that we had white bread in our house. I should have scored mine. Yours look beautiful!
I’m right there with you–I genuinely can’t remember the last time we’ve had regular white bread in our house, but this was fantastic. I stuck to the recipe for the first run but I had considered using whole wheat flour as well. Next time I’ll be a bit more adventurous and just go for it! And that orange-confectioners sugar icing is one of my favorite easy icings. So fresh tasting. These really do look divine.
Your breads look great! 🙂
I skipped the steam pan and was happy with the crust on the bread in the end, just hard enough for white bread. I made mine plain, but I have been wanting some good white bread for some chicken salad I made recently. What a great first recipe for TWD!
now you got me wanting to try the cinnamon, wish i could smell them…going to try the cinnamon this weekend….thanks
Yeah we don’t have white bread much either and even though I subbed white whole wheat for half the flour it still tasted like white bread do to the higher yeast content and shorter rise. Still it was very good and I’d make it again if I needed some white bread in a hurry!
Wow – those look terrific with the glaze. I really wanted to try wheat but didn’t have the proper flour at home and was too lazy to meander to the store to purchase it. Gives me an excuse to make this again! Looking forward to reading more of your posts!
Your loaves are beautiful, I do like your changes. The orange zest in the cinnamon bread sounds yummy.
I’m also baking at above 5000 feet. I used a cup less of flour, the bread turned out delicious. Glad to be baking with you.
Looks great – love all the change ups (especially the glaze…)
Looking forward to more TWD!
Nice! These look amazing. I’m in Nor Cal and it’s a rainy, rainy day. My loaves are on their second rising so I think I’ll be the last one posting this evening. I like your idea of scoring the loves so much that I’m going to do it to mine.
Wow! That looks delicious!
I’m laughing that you called it “almost” white bread. Quite some variations that you made!
wow! Impressive baking skills!
oh, that looks good!
Looks like hot cross buns in loaf form– how delicious! Next time I’m going to try melting the butter, too.
Mmm, yum, those look fabulous!
I love your creativity with the orange icing. Looks better than the pastries at Starbucks.
Fabulous almost white loaves. Love the tip to score the top; I’ll try that next time. Your sourdough post is super gorgeous. I would pay a fortune for bread that looked that good but I would probably not want to slice it. Obviously you have much, much more experience baking than me. This was my first ever loaf of bread; I follow recipes to the letter. Best of luck on the ninth.
Your loaves look awesome. I like the honey whole wheat option. Sounds yummy.
Looks like you had a lot of fun with your bread! I have enjoyed seeing everyone’s variations.
Wow-I love orange with cinnamon. What a brilliant idea for those gorgeous loaves!
Those loaves looks so beautiful! I wouldn’t normally make white loaves, either, but they were nice for a treat.