I live very close to a bread factory. Really. I do. When the wind blows just right, you can stand on my back porch and smell baking bread from the yard. When we drive by, our daughter always says "I smell toast. We're almost home." And it's true. It's a good thing. The neighborhood could smell like sewage or something. I think my college roommate once lived not-quite-close enough to a coffee processor. She couldn't smell it from her house, but she'd drive by occasionally.
We don't eat much bread because we don't do processed lunch meat. If you don't consider sandwiches the staple lunch, bread loses a lot of its necessity. That said, my neighborhood Giant Food Store makes a multi-grain sandwich bread that makes the GREATEST toast ever. So I indulged, about a loaf a month. Until the price reached $4.50/loaf.
Then I started with the bread machine. My results were unpredictable. One loaf would fall flat. One would be perfect. One would be sticky. Now years ago I tried making bread by hand and had the same problems. The recipes all came from my Betty Crocker cookbook and Betty had disappointed me.
And then one day I wanted a baguette. But I didn't have the car. (We only have one in our family.) And I could walk to the grocery store. But the kid... wouldn't. It's too far. I wanted that bread so bad...
So I looked on the internet...
And found a simple recipe.
And now, about six months later, I have finally made a baguette that resembles French bread. The shape has improved. The outside crisp and the inside soft. And bread is indeed an art. Funny thing is... today is the first time I deviated significantly from the original recipe.
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