White Bread Olympics, BBA#40

The Olympics have started! I look forward to the Olympics. I knew that I would spend the day watching the Olympic coverage. What a great opportunity to have a bread challenge.

My husband loves a good loaf of white bread. Peter Reinhart presents three variations of white bread in The Bread Baker's Apprentice, but how would you know which one was better if you didn't try them all at the same time. There needed to be a contest for the gold, silver and bronze.

I started off with Variation One. All of the breads contain flour, salt, sugar, yeast, butter and eggs. They differ in how they get hydrated. Variation one has powdered milk and water. I used King Arthur Flour Baker's Special Dry Milk and that, I think, made all the difference. It produced the Gold Winner. I'm wondering if it is a banned substance, it made such a tasty difference.



Variation 2 had buttermilk. I thought that this would be my favorite, I enjoy buttermilk. I grew up rooting for her, the hometown favorite, but she was only the silver winner.




Variation 3 started with a sponge of bread flour, yeast and whole milk. The sponge seemed a little unnecessary. A bread with attitude. After an hour, more flour, salt, sugar, egg yolk and butter was added to the sponge. The 3rd place winner. I was glad it didn't win gold because I like my white breads to be straight forward. Why add a sponge to the process if it isn't necessary.



They all were very tasty breads, that made some tasty rolls. I'll be making Variation One again.