How to bake the perfect.....

[joycenalex]

snort giggle, wiping my eyes. thanks for the great story.do you know why the bread go to brick?....and will you be doing any more door stops....giggle

[krazyaboutkatz]

LOL What a funny story. I'm sorry that things didn't work out. I don't have the patience for stuff like this so I just go buy it.

[kuhio98]

snort giggle, wiping my eyes. thanks for the great story.do you know why the bread go to brick?....and will you be doing any more door stops....giggle

I think the problem was the clay cooker.
To get a nice crust on bread, sometimes you put some water in the oven or even spray water in the oven occasionally. With the clay cooker, you soak it in water then put the dough in and cook. The water slowly evaporates as it cooks to create the crust. Also, now that I read further, I was not supposed to pre-heat the oven. Since I did, I guess the moisture was released too quickly and created a "super" crust.

Well, I got crust all right! Crust so tough you needed a hacksaw to break into it.

Other uses for Lisa's bread (feel free to add your own)
1. Replace damaged tiles on space shuttle.
2. ?

[Gin]

Just found this thread now. Kuhio98, I don't mean to laugh at your misfortunes, but Oh my God, that was hilarious!

I've never been brave enough to try baking bread from scratch, but I recently baked organic wholegrain scones, and they turned out very much like your bread. Not only were they as hard as diamonds, but they tasted like cardboard and ashes.

Around here, we are too cheap to throw out anything, so all the scones had to be eaten. The procedure is as follows:

1. Laboriously saw each scone in half, using a bread knife.

2. Pile on the butter and jam to make it edible.

3. Chew and swallow scone, being careful not to chip off any tooth enamel.

After a week of this, we fed the rest of the scones to the birds. I can only assume the rain and dew softened the scones to the extent that the birds were able to pick apart and swallow them.

Anyway, the point of all this is, you are not alone!

[DJFyrewolf36]

Im one of those people that can royally mess up canned biscuts, so I sympathise completely! My dad bakes bread from scratch and learned quickly not to let me touch ANYTHING lol.

Im glad your hubby had some self control. Mine can't contain his laughter when I encounter culinary disasters

[Edwina's Secretary]

Oh my! And people wonder why we eat out so much!

[Randi]

Here's my latest attempt, not the best, but eatable. Will have to practise more!

[Gin]

Looks good to me, Randi. Poppy seed bread..Yum.

[kuhio98]

After a week of this, we fed the rest of the scones to the birds. I can only assume the rain and dew softened the scones to the extent that the birds were able to pick apart and swallow them.

Thank goodness! I would hate for a poor birdy to crack a beak!

[Lobodeb]

Wow! I am so sorry to hear about all that work for not. How terribly frustrating. Especially since it was a sour and you fed the starter so well! I've never heard of not preheating the oven though. Did you add salt? Did you mix the heck out of it to develop the gluten?

Thinking about the 12 steps of bread making,

1. Scale your ingredients...did you confirm that all was correct?
2. Mix. Again, mix the heck out of it. For at least 10-15 minutes. Did any of your recipes call for a "window test?"
3. Rest. Self explanitory.
4. Punch. (not literally, of course.)
5. Scale. (I'm sure you only did enough for one batch, right?)
6. Round. Could you have kneaded too much at this stage?
7. Rest. How long did you let it rise?
8. Shaping/panning. Not a whole lot can go wrong here.
9. Proof. Here's another spot that could make it hard. Too long and the bread loses flavor, not long enough and the dough tends to tear.
10. Bake. I'm thinking that clay thingy could have something to do with it.
11. Cool. What's done is done.
12. Eat/store. I'm so sorry! Do you have any of your starter left to start over?