So today was a long day. As was yesterday, and I know the upcoming 7-10 days are probably not gonna be much of a picnic either. So, after I finished my book for Medieval Seminar on Thursday, I decided I was going to take a bit of time and bake some bread from scratch, something I've been wanting to do now for a long time. I'm really hoping that this is something I can keep up on and off throughout this school year as a means of stress reduction, along with brewing and (hopefully, fingers crossed) some cheese-making as well. Kinda the Trappist monk-inspired trifecta. So, that being said, I've never really gotten a "from scratch" bread to work out before. I've made some pretty decent focaccia before, but it really didn't need to rise all that much to be good. My raised breads have always ended in disaster. So I was a bit worried. However, I'm happy to say this turned out pretty well! I used the following recipe,
www.thatsmyhome.com/bakery/basic/gerpumpb.htm
and for once, I actually followed a recipe to the T, not substituting anything or messing around with it in any way. I actually got the bread to double in size (which I've never been able to do before, for one reason or another) and with the exception of getting a bit over-zealous w/my scoring of the top, these guys look pretty good!
