This month's challenge was french bread.
I am a bread novice. I only figured out how to make bread and not hockey pucks about a year ago. Since then every time i crack open the yeast i get nervous.
This month's recipe made me doubly afraid. It was 10 pages long.. in small print.
So i started by staring at the recipe for a few days in horror.. and eventually took the time to read it. I read all 10 pages. Then i stared at the pages in horror again for a few more days.
I finally got up the courage one Saturday and started my bread. I had read an other's blog about finishing at 10 at night and i decided that i would take 2 days to build the loafs.
I started at noon on Saturday blooming my yeast.
I mixed up all the ingredients and started to knead the bread. It went pretty good and my hands were sore by the time i was done.
After the first rise i kneaded again to get the air out. It was about 5pm when i set the bread to rise again.
This is after the second rising. This was in the morning after i had left it for the evening.
I kneaded again and started forming my pain De menage.
I have formed my loaves and they were having issues rising so i turned up the heat and locked them in the bathroom till they behaved.
I tried to do the steam oven and had a hot cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven and just kept tossing ice on it. My husband thought i was having a few issues.
The bread baked up nice and although it didn't rise in the upward direction (It expanded out the bottom) They looked almost perfect on the outside.
Now we ate one loaf ourselves and thought that the texture was amazing. 
It was still slightly warm when we ate it and it was just the right amount of chewy. All of my family is more of sourdough fans so the flavour was lacking a little bit.
It was still slightly warm when we ate it and it was just the right amount of chewy. All of my family is more of sourdough fans so the flavour was lacking a little bit.
The second loaf i gave to a co-worker for her birthday. She said that it was wonderful and her whole family really enjoyed it with their chili.
I don't think this will be something i do again for a long time. I didn't think that the effort was worth the results. It was a great experience though.
Thank you DBers
I am looking forward to march!
Sandra
15 comments:
those are beautiful rounds! but i agree, wasn't really worth the effort IMO (but then again i'm not a big bread person)
Thanks for baking with Sara and I
Nice job on the challenge
your loaf looks great. Well done
I don't think you are a novice anymore. Those are fabulous looking loaves. The trick is to only giving the bread as much attention as it needs, and get on with life in between.
nice loaves:)
I love how you gave your dough a time out/sent them to solitary confinement in your bathroom...
j
Wow! Your bread looks wonderful, I can't believe you have never made it before. I was a little shocked at the amount of time this challenge took but I am glad I did it in the end!
You realize you can only call yourself a novice once, right? For a newbie to bread, you did an amazing job! You should feel proud!
It looks great, even though it wasn't your favorite. Great job completing this challenge!
I think you did a great job, the breads are bakery-worthy with great crusts and super holes!!
I agree that it wasn't worth the time to do often. It was a good thing to do, though! Glad yours turned out so well.
Hi Sandra,
Great to see your blogging is thriving!!!
I like what you said about the challenge this past month - I feel the same way about bread. Though, I must say, your results are wonderful.
I'm on a blogging/baking hiatus for another week or two, then I'll be looking forward to another DB challenge with you and everyone.
Hope all is well.
Julius
http://occasionalbaker.blogspot.com
Hi,
I'm Alisha from Wowzio, and I'm excited to tell you about our new widget platform that helps bloggers increase readership and create more engaged users. I wanted to reach out to you to ask for your feedback on these widgets (feel free to also install them on your blog, if you feel they are a good fit). You can check out widgets customized for your blog here:
Wowzio Widgets for your blog
I'm sorry for leaving this message via a comment, it's not at all our intent to spam you ( which is why i'm leaving this comment on an older post and you can always remove this comment ). Again, we would love to hear your feedback.
Thanks,
Alisha Wright
alisha.wright1@gmail.com
Just bought the Fish Taco from TagBuy.com, check out their website, it has many great offers!
thanks 4 sharing this post
Post a Comment