It's been a while since I've baked my own bread, mainly because it takes a lonnnnng time. This is because magical things happen when you make bread.
Bubbles, fizzles, squeaks and pops are all signs that your working with a live organism, and when it's finally done and everything has worked out as it should have, the result is quite majestic!
Case in point: I wanted to make baguettes, but my recipe called for a small piece of dough to make the starter. I wasn't about to just make a dough so I could snag a bite-sized piece from it, so I made a focaccia bread dough which is a little less time consuming.
I took the piece I needed for the baguette starter and continued with the focaccia which you'll see in a future post... maybe. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped, even though it tasted amazing.
Baking your own bread isn't really all that labor intensive, but if you don't think ahead things can get messed up really quickly. If the recipe calls for the dough to be punched down in two hours, you better be there to get it done.
If you leave a dough to keep rising, it'll just reach a high point and then collapse and no amount of prayers or Googling will bring it back.
I started these two french baguettes recipe mixes on Saturday morning and they finally hit the oven around lunchtime on Sunday. I also made my baguettes into mini's because I don't have a commercial baking oven in my kitchen or traditional baguette pans, or steam.
All I have is my KitchenAid and my hands (with the help of some other little hands in the picture).
So don't get all crazy if you make bread and it doesn't look like the gorgeous baguette you always buy. Commercial bakeries have all the gadgets, but baking at home will require some extra thinking in the head department!
There's very little chance that you'll throw bread in the trash no matter how it turns out, because fresh bread with some cheese or olive oil is really hard to top. If you have the time and the patience to make some bread I would totally encourage you to try it.