update as promised

The baking of the first loaf pictured resting in the previous post involved what Michael is calling a "thermal incident". Which I am calling "when he dropped the *#!?-ing dishcloth in bottom of the oven and we heated it to 450 degrees F". There was smoke, there was char, there was smouldering, there was stink. Luckily - no flames. Unluckily - no bread. It had to be removed from the oven early to allow for extinguishing/smothering of the dishcloth. If you ask him how he managed it and he explains in a way that makes sense, can you let me know? The kids are curious too, all they know is they were kicked out of the house with the phone speed dialled to 000 in case of flames and then had to play outside for two hours while the stink and smoke cleared.

However. Loaf 2 (above) was good. The kids declared it delicious, Michael and I ate it for lunch today and the kids used the last of it to mop up their puttanesca sauce at dinner. It has a sourdough texture with a very mild sourdough taste. Yummo.

Loaf 3 has just been pulled it from the oven. It was happily singing and crackling at me as I took this photo. I used double the dough mix and  tomorrow we will all have it in our lunchboxes.  Stay tuned, by the end of the week I will have this French Boule recipe (page 26) conquered and be on to the next recipe. The holy grail is to bake a loaf of Challah. I can not begin to describe the joys of that buttery goodness. The recipe is on page 180 and I do not think it is merely the whim of the publisher that has put it 154 pages away from where I am starting. But at least I am starting.