I've been wanting to start baking our bread for some time now and once I found this site I knew it was that time.  I'm a stay at home mom living in Iowa with a 9 month old daughter.  I'm making a variation on French bread as I type this...first rise is going well and if it tastes good I'll probably post the recipe.

I hope I learn a lot while I'm here!

I am new to the site and to bread making.  I just made my first loaf tonight.  Orange walnut bread and it turned out pretty good for the first try.  I do think that I made one mistake.  During the last 10 minutes of baking I had to take out the bread and pour on top 1/2 cup sugar mixed with 3 TBS orange juice.  Instead of it staying in the middle, most of it ran to the sides.  I put it in to finish the last 10 minutes of baking.  When I took it out it was a little sticky on the top edges.  Still had a great taste.  The orange juice mixture seemed a little thick when pouring.  Not sure, any thoughts?

Also, just want to say I love this site.  I have learned so much from reading all the info.  I plan to get my own mill and grind my own flour in the near future.  Looking forward to learning from all of ya'll. 

Well, as my account name states I am a Kansas girl stuck in Maryland.  Even though I have now officially lived in Maryland (Ellicott City to be exact) longer than I lived in Kansas (Topeka)(I moved right after college graduation) I will ALWAYS consider myself a Kansan (sorry you Marylanders).

 I have always loved making bread, but have had long bouts (we are talking years) of not making bread.  When I first moved out on my own I made all my own bread.  Mostly plain white from a very old copy of a Betty Crocker bread recipe book.  I would occasionally throw in a loaf of french bread (recipe from the same Betty Crocker book).  I also whipped the occasional loaf of Dilly Casserole Bread (the best no knead bread I have ever had).  But until recently I have been in a long dry spell.

 Then this past winter I discovered the John C. Campbell Folk School (http://www.folkschool.org).  (Shameless plug).  I took the week-long breadmaking class.  Think 8-10 hours everyday of making breads and then getting to eat them.  Absolute heaven.  I came home inspired and began making bread weekly.  And I became a bread recipe junkie (you people are really bad for my waistline and pocketbook).  I was also inspired to revamp my kitchen (remodeling is frowned on in rented apartments) to give myself more room to work.  Even though I have a Kitchen Aid mixer I love the process of making the dough by hand.  I fear that when I first came back from my class I may have given King Arthur catalog the false impression that a new bread shop was opening from the continous orders I put in for about 6 weeks.

 One of the best lessons I learned from my week of breadmaking was that really good bread can take 2-3 days to make.  I now know the joy of coming home from work and whipping up a poolish in a few minutes and coming home the next day to complete the actual dough with a few minutes of kneading and coming home the next day to actually bake my bread.

 While I have owned Ruth Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible for several years I was always intimitated by the recipes.  Now I read throught the recipes and can't wait to try them.  I also purchase Peter Reinhardt's Bread Bakers Apprentice.  Several of the recipes we made in class were from that book.  What a wonderful book.  It is a great read even before you get to the recipes.

So now I come to my quandry.  Maryland (as well as Kansas) gets ungodly hot in the summer time.  AC is a wonderful thing and a blessing, but AC in an apartment is very hard pressed to deal with an oven running at 400+ degrees for an hour+.  Other than getting up at 2:00 AM to bake do you have suggestions for dealing with the heat from the oven.  I am moving into another bout of no bread baking because of the heat and I really don't want to lose my momentum.

I can't wait to read your suggestions and constantly look forward to being inspired by the recipes posted.

Anne

Hello.  My name is Lorie and I'm new here. 

I've been baking bread for a couple years now and enjoy it.  However, with my toddler running around after his two older siblings I thought I'd try out bread machines.  I find completely different results and my kids beg me to go back to my old ways.  In my search to save my bread (from the machine) I found this site.  

I hope to learn much and hopefully be a blessing as well.