Then the remainder of the ingredients are added. I chose to use butter and blackstrap molasses. Butter over shortening any day. Reinhart suggests using the lightest molasses for smoother flavor, though I used the darker blackstrap available at Whole Foods. While I learned to make bread using my hands to mix and knead, I decided to use my Kitchen Aid Classic mixer for this tacky recipe. I mixed the ingredients first by hand making sure it's incorporated well and then transferred the sticky dough to the mixer for kneading. The dough was kneaded for about 8-9 minutes by mixer. I needed to add just a bit more flour to the dough till it became less sticky and more tacky which passed the window pain test. Right when I think the dough is becoming developed, I usually return it back on the workbench and knead till done. I'm still learning the feel of the dough. In this recipe, I didn't want to change the right consistency by adding too much flour just to prevent it from sticking in the bench or my fingers, so I left the dough in the mixer till I felt it was fully developed.
I didn't check the dough temperature but I did let the bowl sit next to fireplace since the kitchen thermometer was reading 64 degrees in the room. After it doubled in size, roughly an hour and a half, I split the dough into two and placed them into two loaf pans. They proofed at room temperature for close to 90 minutes but did experience the loaves crest above the tops of the pans. I suspect it was too cold in the room.
The bread baked for a total of 45 minutes, rotating the sheet pan after 20 minutes for even baking. I removed the loaves from the oven once it registered 190F in the center.