So this was my first run-in with actually making a bread. I was cooking spaghetti the other night and wanted some bread to go along with it. This looked easy enough.
The recipe says to put the flour, baking powder, and salt in the food processor. I found out the hard way, that my food processor is exactly 3 cups. So I dirtied it without even getting to use it and mixed up the dough by hand, which wasn’t difficult.
I put the dough in a cast iron skillet and put it in the oven. It didn’t turn golden brown and looked kinda blah. And it tasted kinda blah too.
This is a very easy recipe, but I wasn’t impressed with the results.
This recipe is Mr. Bittman's invention of the "Italian" version of the Irish Soda bread. He stated that the top will be "golden", not "golden brown". So it should look dark yellow, which is a little bit darker than the one in the picture. I know nothing about baking, but it seems that in order have brown top, you need butter or eggs in the dough. Also, since you use a heavy cast iron skillet, perhaps you could bake for another 10 minutes to compensate for the time it takes to heat up the heavy skillet. Bittman uses an oven proof skillet(which could be stainless steel type) or baking pan, which might heat up more quickly. As far as taste, bread got to have some butter and sugar to taste good, IMHO. In 10 years of using Mr. Bittman's cookbooks, I always bought breads from the supermarkets. Paul.
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