Very Basic Bread

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This is a keeper, ALTON, as are most of your recipes. Plus, you rule.

But your Focaccia, (page 260,'I'm Just Here For More Food' is NG.

Even my poor Kitchen Aid Mixer failed at kneading this dough.

Too much flour/too little H2O and way too salty, even w/kosher salt and no salt on top, to boot.

I've been in the (homeartisian bread making biz for ages, and all I can come up with is the dreaded cookbook TYPO.
ALTON, what's the deal, goshdarnit?

Any corrections you could toss my way?
My email addy is: HotParadox@comcast.net.

Thank you for all the fun and good eats you provide!

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This bread is great, I added a couple tablespoons of splenda and it gave sort of a french bread taste

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It was very difficult for me to convert the ounces to cups, etc for this recipe. It was really confusing. It would have been nice if the measurements were given as they traditionally are in the USA-in cups, not ounces for dry ingredients such as flour. I ended up wasting ingredients until I got it right.

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The recipe calls for "instant rapid rise" yeast. I found this confusing and had to watch the episode again to double check. You'll want to use instant yeast (Saf-Instant is what I used rather than the rapid yeast you find in packets.

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I have been on a quest to find and buy the perfect bread--crusty on the outside, soft on the inside--for years to no avail. Finally, after watching Alton's bread recipe I was inspired to try to achieve bread perfection by doing the baking myself. Luckily, by following this recipe, I found exactly what I was looking for on the first try. This bread is absolutely delicious. It reminds me of the Pugliese bread I grew up with from the Italian bakery. The hardest part was the waiting time--especially the last 30 minutes of cooling!!

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Okay.

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Make this right away- it's wonderful! But make sure you have the right tools: I improved a little on the terra cotta pot idea and lined the bottom and rack of my gas oven with unglazed quarry tiles- my oven was a glorious brick oven for about $7.50 from the tile store. I didn't have a peel so I used the back of a cookie sheet. I didn't improvise on the scale however, a good kitchen scale is imperative! Watch your bread as the 50-60 minutes suggested was a little too long for me, I probably should have pulled it out at 45- but despite it being a little overly-brown this was a delicious chewy chewy bread that's even good on the 2nd day!

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It takes a little time but it is well worth the wait!

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This was my first day of breadmaking ever. After (somewhat following the recipe and waiting for the pre-ferment overnight, the dough didn't look "right" to me - it wasn't rising and it seemed very heavy so I thought I had wrongly executed the conversions or added too much flour to compensate for adding the liquid that covered my Tupperwared pre-ferment to the dough. I left the dough out overnight intending to toss out my "mistake" and to my happy surprise, the next morning I found it had lots of air pockets...I baked it (since I had nothing to lose and watched it rise in the oven!! The texture is dense and chewy with a crisp crust - even without the cornstarch wash - I used a steam bath...I'll make it again and leave out the liquid from the pre-ferment - or wrap it loosely as Alton instructs! :

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I did a couple of tries on this recipe. I like the 'sponge' method and it's nice to have a 1 yeast envelope recipe. Many call for 2. It's very good bread, but like the recipe says, very basic.