dill cottage cheese bread

i told you i'd post about a failure...and this was a failure as far as i'm concerned. i got this recipe from a friend on facebook, and i was uber excited to try it out. bread is kind of scary to make, as yeast can be very tempermental. overmixing the dough can also break down the gluten in the flour so much that your bread turns tough and chewy.

that being said, i'm still going to attempt this recipe again. there are just a couple of things i am going to tweak and see if it doesn't turn out better.

here's the recipe. if you make this, i'd love to know what you think. in fact, i'd like to know if you make any of my recipes and what you think.

dill cottage cheese bread

* 2/3 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
* 2/3 cup cottage cheese
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 3 cups flour
* 1 tablespoon white sugar
* 1 tablespoon dry milk powder
* 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
* 1 tablespoon dried dill weed
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast

pour yeast into warmed mixing bowl. dissolve sugar into water and pour over yeast. det sit 5 min. mix cottage cheese with softened butter,and dill. mix flour with all remaining dry ingredients. turn mixer to speed 2 and add flour and cottage cheese mixtures. mix for about 3 min. add more flour if needed, but not too much.

let rise in bowl until doubled put in a greased loaf pan and let rise.

bake at 400 for 12-14 min. tent with aluminum foil and bake for 12-14 more minutes at 350.

if you double the recipe, split the dough with a knife, don't pull it apart.

this recipe appealed to me for several reasons: first of all, i love dill. it's one of my favorite herbs. it's a wonderful accompaniment to potatoes and fish, especially. i also love cottage cheese - but not plain. i like it in dips and i thought it would be good in bread. it actually kind of melts in and you don't even realize it's an ingredient in the finished product.

here's why it failed for me: first of all, the finished product wasn't salty enough. i doubled the recipe, but i don't remember if i doubled the salt or not. next time, i'm adding more salt. it was fairly bland, in spite of having the dill and the onion flavor. there just wasn't enough salt.

second: i should have added more flour. the dough wasn't smooth and elastic like bread dough should be. i should have trusted my gut instinct and added more flour, but i had never made this before and i wanted to stick to the recipe as much as possible. the dough was more like a quick bread batter (think banana bread) and less like a yeast dough.

the bread was still pretty good with soup and was decent with butter on it. when i make it again, i'll post an update. again, if this appeals to you, make it and let me know what you think.