Blow-out

I've baked quite a lot of the bread we eat here at home for a long time. I started with a bread machine when we were just-married, but I graduated to "real" bread not long after that. After I tasted my friend Donna's bread, I was ashamed to admit that I was only dumping the ingredients into a machine and not touching it until it was time to slice it. Of course, even that bread was better than what we can buy in a store. But I was determined to learn to make my own bread, and I did learn and I've made a lot of it.

I usually use a plain French bread recipe and modify it in various ways: bread sticks, flat bread with herbs and parmesan, small dinner rolls. It's easy, it doesn't take too long, and I have the recipe memorized and I know just how much of my favorite flour (King Arthur, by the way) the recipe will take during the summer or winter.

Lately, I've gotten lazy, though. I hadn't been making much bread because it takes a little while to rise, and I've been keeping the house cooler than usual this winter, so it takes even longer. Once I get home, take about 10 deep cleansing breaths to get the screaming kids out of my consciousness, and decide to make bread, it could be as late as 6:00 before the bread goes in the oven. With a 40 minute baking time and several minutes to cool, it's almost too late to eat it with dinner. I guess that doesn't make me lazy, just busy and impatient.

Anyway, I saw a Mother Earth News article about making fresh baked bread in five minutes a day. It took me a few months, but I finally tried it, and we love it. It's quick, it's easy, and it's tasty. I've made 10 loaves so far, and last night I made another. I put the dough on the peel, let it sit for 40 minutes, and slid it into the oven. 

Well, I tried to slide it into the oven.  I had left the dough a little wet--an experiment with crumb for you bread bakers out there--and it stuck to the one-quarter inch of wood that did not have cornmeal. Clung to it like a kindergartner to his mama's skirt. A quick flick of the wrist unstuck it, but I could tell this loaf was not going to be a pretty one. 

Forty minutes later, my prediction was realized. From the front, it's not too bad looking. And though you can't see it, the crust is very thin with small bubbles. This crust "sings" when I take it from the oven, and the aroma is beyond description.

From the back, however, you can see what happens when the dough-seam comes undone. 

Not pretty. I'm not even going to describe what the mass sticking out looks like.

But it still eats OK.