A half loaf is better than . . .

. . . a whole loaf that goes stale.

I’m making two small loaves of bread nowadays. One goes to my neighbor Mary. This started a month or so ago when Mary called me on her cell phone while she was shopping at WinCo. She asked me what yeast I used for my bread. I told her “Bakipan” in a jar. She said she would buy a jar for me. I thanked her very much because I hate shopping at WinCo.

I baked a loaf of bread with the yeast using Robert’s bread recipe with my modifications (I add ¼ cup of milk to the original recipe and cut the hot water down to 1 cup.) I gave one half to Mary. A whole loaf gets stale before I can eat it all up so I was glad to share.

I looked around online for smaller bread pans (half size) but all I could find were small loaf pans. I wanted full size slices of bread for sandwiches and toast so tiny loaves were not suitable. It finally dawned on me that I could make dough for a full loaf and then cut it in half and make two balls of dough to rise in one full size pan. I put a piece of parchment paper between the two dough balls and they both did fine. I bake the bread for only 28 minutes because it seems to get brown faster.

Now my bread does not go stale before I finish the loaf. Mary likes her small loaf, too. What a deal!