Baking Bread

Brioches à tête

It almost seems unbelievable to me that I am now able to make bread! Fresh, home-made bread! For the longest time I was afraid of baking with yeast. My fear was almost confirmed because the very first bread that I tried to bake, did not rise! After more than two hours of resting, the dough had remained the same size.

Focaccia with truffle oil

Thank goodness for the internet! I found the possible reason for the failure of the dough to rise. I did put in the butter and milk mixture into the yeast mixture before the butter and milk mixture had cooled sufficiently. Hot liquid is most certain to kill the yeast. But thank goodness, the dough could be saved by adding in a new yeast mixture!

Monkey Bread

That was the first bread that I baked and that was like two weeks ago. Since that day I have baked brioches à tête, white bread, focaccia, sage flat bread, date and honey loaf, and most recently monkey bread. I cannot wait for all the bread in the house to be used up so I can try the next recipe!

Date and Honey Loaf

I read some where that baking bread can be quite addicting! And I think I can now understand that feeling! Every successful bread becomes an incentive for the next project! I think the next project I would like to try is curry filled buns. I love those buns especially at tea time! Yum!

I bought two books on baking bread and one of them has recipes for gluten free bread and once the vital wheat gluten that I ordered through Amazon arrives, I would like to try baking bread with flour other than wheat. That should be interesting!