Pain de Mie

        Today was the first day of baking and it was an experience.  I love cooking and cook quite often when I am at home but I am unable to cook often at school due to the lack of a kitchen. This was my first time using mass to measure ingredients and I already plan on buying myself a kitchen scale, its nice not to have a large pile of measuring cups and spoons to clean when you are done cooking.
        We used the basic Pain de Mie loaf from Ciril Hitz's Baking Artisan Bread.  The prep was very straight forward and the recipe came together quite well.  At first we did not believe that our bread was rising well but we ended up with a very good result .  It is a basic sandwich bread with a nice texture without being overly chewy.  It has a much richer flavor than commercial sandwich bread which I believe is largely due to the use of whole milk and butter.
     The recipe was geared towards using a lidded Pullman pan but we used a regular loaf pan and instead of cooking at 375 for 30 minutes covered and lowering to 350 for 15 minutes uncovered.  We cooked it at 350 for the duration of the baking period.  The recipe advised removing the bread from the pan and cooking it for 3-5 minutes directly on the rack and this gave the crust a very nice brown color.
     If I added anything I would use and eggwash to give the crust a more appealing shine as it has a slightly dull appearance.  I would recommend this recipe for anyone that is wanting a easy, one-day bread that is going to be pared with something such as sandwich filling.