Since the idea behind this blog originally was to chronicle some of my baking adventures, I figured it was time to actually chronicle a said adventure. For Christmas my boyfriend gave me an awesome bread making book. It is not only recipes but really breaks down bread making and explains in detail how to really work with dough. This was the perfect gift for me, because, let's face it, my bread from regular bread recipes were coming out less than yummy. My mom gave me a stand mixer for my birthday, so I had no problem with making the dough, but when it came to baking, the inside was constantly coming out doughy no matter how many different things I tried. I decided that I was over making regular sandwich bread. I read my new book cover to cover and instead of starting with the basics, I decided to tackle the not so basic.For my first attempt with this book, I decided on Challah. Challah is a sweet Jewish bread that is braided before it is baked. Reading through the recipe it looked incredibly intimidating, but hell, regular bread wasn't coming out any better so I didn't have anything to lose. So I made my dough, let it rise, kneaded it some more, and then stuck it in the fridge. That is one thing that I really like about the bread recipes in this book . You let the dough rise overnight in the fridge (I think this might be secret to not having doughy baked bread or maybe it's the eggs used in this particular bread, just a guess). Anyhow, the next day was baking day, the time when everything goes to shit. I followed the directions precisely and even managed to braid a pretty impressive looking loaf. This time I followed the baking instructions exactly, even leaving the bread in when it appeared that it was over baking. All this hard work resulted in:
Not too shabby. But more importantly, the inside wasn't doughy! Bread baking challenge uno was a success.
So my original reason behind starting a blog was to chronicle my successes and failures of my new found hobby of baking/cooking. But, I've come to realize that it is also a great way of venting about life (I'm female, it's what we do). I've started a new job and I'm a full time graduate student working on a second master's degree... no, one is not enough. I also have my boyfriend, and my friends, and oh yeah, my landlord recently died which puts our living situation in a constant flux. So goes my life. My parents are visiting this weekend which means two things. The first is that I have to clean the house. I hate cleaning. When I first moved into this house I thought it would be great to no longer have carpet. No carpet means no vacuuming. However, no vacuuming now means sweeping AND mopping. Do you know how hard it is to keep a dog off wet floors, when all the floors are wet? Normally she has no problem laying on the couch or in my bed, but not when the floors are wet. This must be what it's like to have a child. Second, I have to cook at least one dinner. I honestly have no problem with this, since I have been doing a lot of it. It is a chance for me to cook something fancy/tasty/pretty/harder than a microwave or an oven frozen dinner. However, when I ask mom what she and dad wants, the response is "dad wants mac and cheese". Seriously mac and cheese? And yes dad, I am making fun of you. So tonight it will be mac and cheese, at least it's easy and I know I can't mess it up.
