Second Try

On to the second loaf.
I made sure to only use 1 cup of water.
Oh, and on the water. The box mix says room temperature water. So I got water basically straight from the tap, before it gets hot or cold, and then I let it sit about 15 more minutes just to make sure. I think that's long enough, don't you?


The instructions say to just use the 'basic' setting when using the box mix, but the box says to use the 'regular' or 'whole wheat' setting. So I tried 'whole wheat' on the advice of the boyfriend. Good plan.
And I just poured/dumped the dry mix over the water, I didn't spread it around. It made a little mound in the center, I did make a little well in the mound for the yeast, so the yeast wouldn't touch the water just yet.
The bread rose up to full potential. Smelled great, tasted great. It was a little crusty. So next time, I'll try light crust.
Also, it was hard to cut. I was thinking it was just we didn't have the 'right' kind of knife at 'his' house, or maybe I needed to buy a special bread cutting knife (which I still may do), but I later found in the instructions to cool the bread 15-20 minutes before cutting. Whoops. We had cut it in under 5 minutes. We'll try actually letting it cool next time. ;p