Julia’s White Bread

I was looking for a nice easy bread to try and I came across Julia Child's recipe for White bread. I LOVE my Baking with Julia cookbook so I figured this had to be good. Here is the recipe

2 1/8 cups water

2 tsp active dry yeast

2 tsp sugar

6 cups bread flour or all-purpose flour

2 tsp salt

¼ cup unsalted butter softened

1 Pour 1/2 cup of the water into a bowl and mix with yeast and sugar til foamy.

2 Let sit for 5 minutes until creamy.

3 Put the yeast mixture, rest of the water and 3 cups of the flour into the mixer with the dough hook.

4 Mix slowly until blended then add the rest of the flour.

5 Increase speed and scrape down the sides until the dough comes together.

6 (If it doesn't add a tbsp of flour at a time until it does.) Add salt and mix at medium speed for 10 minutes (or do half in mixer and half kneading) until dough is smooth and elastic.

7 Back in mixer add butter 1 tbsp at a time (dough may come apart, but mixing will pull it back together).

8 Turn dough out on lightly floured surface and shape it into a ball then place in a large buttered or oiled bowl.

9 Turn dough so it is completely coated in the fat, then cover in plastic for 45 minutes to an hour, until it has doubled in size at room temperature.

10 Butter 2 loaf pans.

11 Deflate the dough, cut in half and turn out onto a lightly floured surface.

12 Roll out into a 9 x 12-inch rectangle.

13 With the short end facing you, fold the dough into thirds like a sheet of paper to go into an envelope, creating a roll.

14 Pinch the seam closed, and pinch the ends enough so it will fit in the loaf pan.

15 Drop in the loaf pan seam side down, and repeat.

16 Cover the loaves with buttered plastic wrap and allow to rise again in a warm place (80°F) for 45 minutes, until they double in size.

17 Preheat the oven to 375°F and put the rack in the center of the oven.

18 Bake for 35-45 minutes until they are honey brown.

19 Immediately turn out of pans onto a rack to cool.

20 Once almost completely cool, they can be cut.

21 Store in a brown paper bag for a day or two.

22 Once cut, turn cut side down onto a cutting board and cover with a kitchen towel.

I followed the recipe to the letter with one exception. I never have unsalted butter in my house so I used salted butter and cut the amount of salt I added to the recipe in half.

I really enjoyed working with this bread dough, I was just imagining how great it would taste especially with butter in it! It rose beautifully and baked into a rather pretty loaf. I knew this would just be a standard white bread loaf so no expectations for anything "artisan" like. But still even with fairly low expectations I found this bread really lacking. It didn't taste like anything. Maybe it needed more salt, maybe I'm not used to a loaf that due to its quick rising times doesn't have time to really develop much flavor. I also didn't like the effect the rolling out and folding of the dough had on the final product. The inside was made up of a spiral of bread. When you cut it the darn thing unraveled. White bread is supposed to be great for sandwiches and toast. I couldn't successfully use it for either of those things! I think I will try some variation of this again but I wouldn't roll it out and I would definitely use more salt. Julia, I'm disappointed!