slush

I’m just going to put it all out there. I went into this challenge with a bad attitude. I did. I didn’t want to spend a day thinking about bread, checking on bread, baking bread. I tackled this challenge when my family was in the thick of stomach flu. Why? Because it was the only time this month I could get ‘er done. I am an idiot. I am. I should have just thrown in the towel this month. Instead, I baked the f’n bread, bitching about it before, during and after. (However, I didn’t do it in open forum, only IM and right now, on my blog, which I think is acceptable.) I made my friend, Chelle of Sugar and Spice, suffer along with me. Poor Chelle. We both tackled it on a Sunday afternoon with similar results and opinions at the end. And both with the poor attitude. You rock Chelle! Thanks for sticking it out with me!

The bread was not difficult to make. In fact, it was rather easy. I will say I had a lot of difficulty with the directions. I thought they were hard as hell to understand. Even reading over them multiple times did not help me. I did my best with them, and forged on. It was only about 15-20 minutes of work and the rest was waiting, waiting, waiting. But with 3 kids under 5, it is hard to think about something else for a whole day. I think my bread suffered for it. It rose very well during the 1st and 2nd rise and did little to nothing on the 3rd. It did rise in the oven some though.

End result was okay, not good, not great, but okay. Jaos said “Its bread”. That sums up our thoughts on it. All bread right out of the oven is good. I was unable to let it cool completely though, or I would have been eating it at 11pm. So, I saved one loaf till the next day. But it got so hard, I couldnt cut into it very easily. I’d still say this challenge is a success. I made a different kind of bread that I had not made before. And it was edible, thats a success right?

You can get the recipe for this challenge here.

Thanks to Breadchick and Sara for this challenge, and thanks to DB as always. Please check out the Daring Baker Blogroll to see all the fabulous looking french bread and there are some beauts!