Baking Bread Challenge Week #1

This weekend I've really been into baking. Not sure why. But it's been a fun little obsession. 

Friday night I made some maple bars from a Pinterest recipe I found. They were really yummy! I didn't take any pictures though. But trust me, they were good.

Then Saturday morning I made a bunch of cinnamon rolls and took them to the neighbors. We had new neighbors move in behind us and I wanted to take them a treat so that we could introduce ourselves. Then we took some to our neighbors across the street because we didn't want them to be jealous.

Anyway. Today as we were driving home from church I said to Jordan, "We should learn to make French bread...the fluffy kind...like from the store!" When I got home I found a bunch of recipes. I wasn't sure which one was best, so I decided that for the next few weeks I would make each recipe and see which was the best!

We started with one that was on a blog. The recipe was titled "Quick French Bread."

However, once I started I realized the recipe was anything but quick. You had to set the oven to three different temperatures during the baking of the bread, each one for like ten minutes. Which was a pain.

And by the time I got to the last temperature, I checked the bread and it looked DONE. So I pulled it out eight minutes early.

Doesn't it look DONE?

I was scared that when I cut it open it wouldn't be cooked through, but it was.

The crust was delicious, but the inside wasn't quite as fluffy as I'd hoped. Plus the recipe took a lot of bread-sitting, which was annoying. Maybe I'll find this is the norm...who knows?

Thus the search for the perfect fluffy french bread continues!