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Or something like that. As I sat here this morning waiting for a call back from the furnace repair man who said it was fixed on Wednesday, and carefully re-piecing the quilt pieces I had painstakingly unpicked over the last few days - I had time to mull this over. If a bread recipe doesn't work out the way it should, at least the results are usually edible. I know I have continued to work with dough that any sane person would have dumped and frequently been pleasantly surprised. Quilts, on the other hand, are not so forgiving.

Well, so here pictures of my first bake as part of the "Bread" challenge. I will have to remember to take pictures of the process in the future, and in the meantime I am apologizing that there are none this time around.

The problem with buying specialty flours from the bulk food section is distinquishing the bags from another in my pantry. Those little scribbles on the twist ties don't really help.  Anyway, on Sunday I thought I'd make a rye using my rye sourdough starter. It wasn't until the flour hit the water that I began to notice the greyish color. Ah, this is that buckwheat I bought.

This is Challah formula from Ciril Hitz's, Baking Artisan Bread. It's tonight's dessert with cream cheese and jam, and tomorrow morning's French Toast.

David G

These are the most delicious tasting waffles and a keeper recipe for me.  They are crispy and light with a wonderful flavor.  Very easy to make and were perfect to feed my hungry husband Mike after his very early morning bike race.  He had stayed up after working his swing shift and went directly to the race.  9 AM he was home and hungry.  I had prepared my batter that night and only had to heat the waffle iron add eggs and baking soda to the batter and wisk.  I made some poached eggs while the waffles baked.  This recipe comes from the popular

and some Bagguetes.

Just tried french baguettes for the first time.  All went well, except they didn't brown well.  I used King Arthur Flour recipe, which calls for a 500 oven reduced to 475 when the bread goes in.  Several blogs on the KAF website recomended starting with a 475 oven and reducing to 450, so that's what I did.  Any advice?

I made French bread for the first time today, and it turned out great.  At least I think it turned out great; I have never had good French bread from a bakery.  The crumb was somewhat tighter than I would like, but the flavor was awesome.  The recipe calls for a total of 4-6 hours of rising at 70 degrees, but it was much, much warmer than that in the house this morning, and we were eating the bread for lunch by the time it should have been finishing its second rise.  The crust stayed nice and crisp, which was also a bonus.

Before going into the bread itself (which is simple enough), here is some background:

About a week ago the Jews had their Passover holiday. This holiday lasts for a week during which the religious and traditional Jews are not allowed to eat any bread that its dough was allowed to rise.

This is due to the Bible story of the Hebrew slaves running away from Egypt (the story with Moses – let my people go…). During this quick departure, they didn’t have the time to let their dough to rise and instead of bread they the Matza – bread of the poor – for their desert track.