Good Stuff!

One of the nice things about working from home occasionally, which can get very monotonous without human interaction, is the chance to do a little bread baking. I'm finding bread baking is both a very needy (no pun intended) AND a very "leave me alone!" kinda thing... Sure, you've got to mix together the ingredients, and let the KitchenAid do all the work of kneading them when you don't have much time, but then you just...let...it...sit. Then come back to it, punch it down, and let...it...sit. Come back, punch it down again, shape, put in/on pans, and let...it...sit. Then bake for quite awhile (again, you don't need to supervise this part!).

So - Brett came come home from work on a day I've worked from home, and find some nice bread fresh from the oven!

This week was no exception - I finally tried the Recipes from the Old Mill French bread recipe that Julie highly recommended I make. I have to say that, while it's SHAPED like French bread, I don't know that I'd really classify the taste/texture as the French bread I know. (Listen to me, acting like I know all about breads!) If I could compare it to something, I'd say it's very similar to Subway's wheat bread used for their sub sandwiches. (This is a good thing, as that's one of my fave breads there) It's a nice tender and wheaty bread... Julie swears it freezes well too, so I cut the two loaves in half, and froze three of the half loaves. We'll see how it turns out!

Here's some posing of the ingredients... As you can see, it's a very happy mixture of yeast, water and sugar!


Turn my back for a couple of minutes and OH SHIT!


Luckily there was very little of the yeasty water that went over the edge - mostly just foam, and not as much as it looked like being wasted! A little while later, after mixing the ingredients together and letting the dough rise, here's what I had.


Annnnd the rolling out flat and then rolling up "like a scroll" technique from the book...


Placing on lightly oiled and dusted (heavily in this case!) with cornmeal cookie sheet... (And this means I can't cook these directly on the baking stone, which crisps up bread nicely!)


Positioned, lightly topped with egg wash, and sliced....


...and finally baked:


These guys had a beautiful golden/bronze color! Very tender! And great taste! MMM!