Hello Mellow Bakers - Dan Lepard's "Quick White Loaf"

I've joined in a challenge hosted by Paul at mellowbakers to bake our way through the recipes in Dan Lepard's book "The Handamade Loaf" first published in 2004 (but only acquired by me as a Christmas present in 2011). I've already been baking recipes from the book fairly intensively as I bake a loaf most days. But as it happens Paul has chosen three recipes that I haven't yet tried to begin with so I'm happy to be prompted by the challenge.

First things first.

I am an amateur. My day job is a 9-5 office job. Bread is my antidote. My opinions are my own (and very strongly felt). I have been baking bread at home on and off (mostly off) since 1979 when I bought a copy of Floss and Stan Dworkin's "Bake Your Own Bread - And Feel Healthier"

Dan Lepard is a professional with a whole career in baking culminating in his column for The Guardian newspaper.  He has done a lot to promote bread baking in Britain and beyond. Through his column his books and his website Dan has shared the tricks of the trade that he learned through bitter experience with his readership.   I think Dan is great!

I have grown my own experiences, shortcomings , shortcuts and instincts.

So I tried the first Challenge recipe today:

The ingredients are what you would expect for bread: flour,water, salt and yeast. The 'extras' in this recipe are milk and millet flour

Rather than baking just a freestanding loaf I thought I would try a pan loaf too, as the recipe is for two loaves:

Here they are after their second prove (which I stopped after 1hr instead of 90mins)

The free stansing loaf is a bit trickier as it needs to be tipped out of it's muslin lined basket onto a baking tray  dusted with rice flour

slashed and then slid onto a hot ceramic baking or pizza "stone".

The results were not at all bad

Crumbs

Even the pan loaf turned out a most acceptable light brick:

One loaf disappeared at first sitting!