I’ve never made bread before. I was raised with what I now view as a healthy fear of yeast: it’s finiky and temperamental.

I’ve gone 30+ years quite fine like this, but now I’m spotting all sorts of great looking recipes that seem inaccessible unless I learn how to work with yeast. Not just good homestyle bread, but cinnamon buns, hot crossed buns, tearaway loaves, monkey bread, whole grain bread, sourdough bread, olive bread, dill bread, cheese bread….

So this weekend I made my first loaf of bread. Time to celebrate, no? Well, not really.

The recipe sounded forgiving. That’s good right? I read a few other recipes to see if there were major differences in techniques (not much) and I got to work.

The recipe didn’t tell me to proof the yeast, but I did anyways. Otherwise I followed it to the T. Here are my notes:

• It took a lot longer for the bread to rise even though I did it in the warmed oven as suggested
• The dough never truly came together — there always seemed to be strips that were covered in flour that wouldn’t incorporate with the rest
• I greased the pan and turned over the dough to coat both sides — the dough ended up with what felt like a greasy crust by the time I baked it
• The final texture ended up very dense even though I added some more water to make the dough more pliable
• The cooked loaf was really heavy

What you don’t see in the photo above, is that the other loaf (that I tried braiding) went into the oven looking like a pile of entrails on a pan — luckily it looked better coming out of the oven.

Since I’ve never made bread before, I don’t know how to gauge for feel when working with the dough. I’ve seen beautiful photos of dough that looks soft and pliable… and I expected mine to be that way too… but it wasn’t!

So. What I’m hoping you can help with is this: I’d like some suggestions, tips & resources for making bread. If you know of any tricks, blogs, books, videos, etc. that might help me (and others!) out, please share!

(I’d also be happy with tricks to using up dry, dense bread!)

Thanks!