Saturday, October 1, 2011

taking a chance again.....

once upon a time,  a long, long time ago, i tried making bread.  from scratch. with yeast.
i failed miserably.  
it was hard, gummy and weighed a ton.....and i hated the kneading process because 
i never felt the spongy and soft dough that it was supposed to become.
since that time, i have never attempted to make a yeast bread again...
because i was too scared of failing miserably.
i don't know how i plucked up the courage to try again, but i did.
the sam's club near my house sells a rosemary and sea salt focaccia.  
it rocks my world.  
and makes my pants tighter....
i wanted to try and make my own. 
i used a recipe i found in one of my favorite cookbooks
apples for jam

i am a sucker for a good cookbook and tessa kiros is also a photographer. 
just about each recipe had a picture and she writes the story of the recipes of her childhood.  
it is a beautiful cookbook and i adore the title....what's not to love? 
anyway,
it was a very simple recipe with very simple instructions
and, now i have a kitchen aid mixer with a dough hook
something i didn't have the first go around....so it kneaded right in the mixer.
i couldn't believe how easy it was.  
ridiculously easy.
the dough rose just like it was supposed to. 
i just pushed my fingers into the dough like the recipe said 
to make little craters for all of the olive oil.
i sprinkled it with sea salt and fresh chopped rosemary from my garden. 
looks great huh?  i will admit that it was a little tough and the outside edges of the crust were really hard and crunchy. and it was a little dry for my taste.
since i am not any kind of a baker, i am not sure how to rectify that
 but i think if i take it out of the oven a few minutes earlier and maybe spray some water in the oven while it is baking that could improve it...

if you are a baker, can you give me some suggestions on how to make it more tender?
but it tasted delicious and i have finally conquered my fear of yeast.....
my next challenge will be cinnamon rolls....


(i don't know what the deal is with the font....sorry, i can't fix it....)


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whenever I make something (like pie) that I'm worried about over-crisping the ends, I just cover them with tinfoil. Maybe you could just put a 1-2" border of foil around the edges and see if that helps. Looks yummy regardless!

Rebecca Miller said...

If you spritz some water into the hot oven when you put the bread in, it will make your crust slightly chewy. Did you let it rise, bunch it down, and let it rise a second time? The slower the rise the better the flavor. You had some big bubbles that needed to be punched down with more dough poking. The more puckers the better with focaccia.

HTH!

Love,
Becky

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