11.02.2006

Baguettes


I have been thinking about starting my bread baking full time again. I'm tired of store bought loaves; The closest thing I've come to good bread is from the little La Brea Bakery kiosk in my local supermarket where they bake 2/3's baked loaves in a little convection oven to get them to you hot.

It baffles me to see 2-3 weeks old loaves of store bought bread sitting the bread pantry that look as they were just baked yesterday; what are they putting in these things?! In this turmoil, I headed to the closest health food supermarket to seek out an organic, no perservative loaf in case of emergencies. I found an oraganic millet and flax loaf that happens to be gluten free as well which was nice, made a nice breakfast toast. I used to regularly buy Ezekiel's Seasame Loaf but my boyfriend's mom is deathly allergic to seasame seeds - so that was a no go.

Getting back to me bread baking, my "skills", which were mediocre for a home baker, have slightly dwindled. I don't remember the process as well as I did. So, I started simple a recipe from Cooking Light for Baguettes. I know, probably not the best place for a baguette recipe but what I was looking for was simplicity, a small list of ingredients, not much prep, and hot bread before work.

Little did I know how many problems I would run into, including, shattering a glass baking dish in the oven. Good job. I won't go into detail about anything else.

In the end, the loaf was ready right as I was walking out the door. I sliced off a steaming end of my "baguette" and bit into bread bliss. It actually had a good flavor and crust was nice, crunchy and brown but the bottom was a bit under done on the bigger of the two. I would recommend this recipe for anyone wanting some fresh bread with menial effort and large margin for error. *I'll post the recipe later on today.
Today, I'm gonna search for a bread recipe to prepare for tomorrow so I can start a poolish this afternoon. Let the bread baking begin!

2 comments:

Brilynn said...

There's nothing better than the smell of fresh baked bread.

Julia said...

nice! nothing beats self-made bread - the smell, the taste the freshness - perfect!