I am home, curled up on the couch today, watching Mansfield Park and wishing that I were baking.
It’s freaking cold.
Soon I will go upstairs and lay down in my bed and fall asleep while watching something silly and mildly entertaining.
Don’t take my word for it…Kellie loved it too.
The whole loaf of pumpkin bread was DEVOURED by the inhabitants of 318.
I take back what I said about disliking that recipe. I’m still not sure what they were trying to do with the whole warm milk thing, and this dough in no way behaved like normal bread dough. However, I am sufficiently satisfied with the outcome.
Zak said earlier, why are you guys so worried about it rising? Can’t you add more yeast or something? I laughed, but he has a point. The dough I threw out yesterday would probably have been turned out great. Besides, it was smothered in butter and sugar and rum and that covers a multitude of culinary sins.
This bread would fit in excellently at a brunch, or for some late-fall scary movie watching. Or some late-fall The Nine Lives of Chloe King watching.
Because that’s a thing.
In the meantime, I have to show you the most beautiful loaf of French bread I have ever made. And I only have ever made four. And I made them yesterday.
This.
Is happening.
Right now.
This recipe is irritating. I really really am disappointed with the fact that the dough did not rise. It’s a dessert bread, so it should be dense, but the yeast did not proof even though I heated the milk through to almost boiling at first. Also the dough didn’t rise hardly at all. But somehow the small slices of dough are enough for the pan.
See how disappointing this looks?
In an hour, we’ll see how it turns out.
It’s my best so far.
I am so excited.
I made loaves of French bread!
So I’ve got some French-style loaves in the oven. I messed up a bit because I accidentally put oil in the dough, and I am a bit pressed for time so I didn’t let it rise the second time as much as I should have. But I have four small French loaves in the oven.
Tonight I am going to see The Ides of March with Alix, since tomorrow is my first day at my new job and she thinks I should do something to mark my last day of freedom. :) I really have wonderful and supportive friends.
Kellie did some baking today too! She tried a recipe from The Joy of Cooking, and so far she has been underwhelmed by the turn-out. It might be that she is a novice at bread-baking, or that the recipes are mediocre, or maybe a bit of both.
I also had a failure today with the Pumpkin Spice Pull-apart bread. I bought A TON of pumpkin so I will try again tomorrow, and make sure that my yeast proofs first.
I made beer bread tonight!
I used this recipe from Honest Fare, which has a lot of great things.
The recipe says that lighter beers are better, and I tried two different kinds. For one, I used a tallboy of MGD (that loaf turned out bigger, naturally), and for the other I grabbed a bottle of Sierra Nevada Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale out of the fridge that was leftover from my birthday party. Also, I added more flour and kneaded the dough, which the recipe did not call for. If I had left it as a stickier dough, I think it would have been fluffier.
But as it is, I am happy with it. It was a quick and easy way to get a couple of loaves in the oven, and the best part is that you can use any beer, even a $1.69 tallboy.
Alright friends, all 7 of you!
I know I promised to bake every day except Sunday, and that today is Wednesday, and that I should bake today.
But I realized that unless I have a plan, I can’t very well execute my plan. So since today I did Things, I will spend my evening planning the next couple of weeks’ baking, so that the rest of my time can be used more productively. I can’t keep buying flour every few days, or running out of ingredients.
See you all tomorrow!
Today’s bread baking went smoothly. I used the exact same recipe, with some changes. I substituted some white flour since I was just out of whole wheat. The sponge was set to rise longer than maybe it should have, but I didn’t work the dough as hard as I did on Saturday. It was definitely a hugely relaxing activity after an unnecessarily stressful morning.
I also baked cookies in between working the dough, which turned out to be marvelous hits at the school fundraiser tonight. I walked in with 3 and 1/2 dozen, and walked out with just 3.
Later this week, I am hoping to do a French loaf! I have to do a little bit of planning before I go to sleep tonight, so tomorrow morning you can expect a post about what we’re looking forward to for the next couple of weeks!
