Crusty French Bread

My son was so amazingly well behaved tonight I'm a little suspicious he's been swapped. The past few days (before tonight) have been such nightmares. He's been fighting sleep, fussing a lot and just being onery all around. I love him dearly but the boy drives me nuts sometimes! But tonight, we really enjoyed each other's company. He smiled, played, did his tummy time, read stories with me and went right to sleep without a fight. When he woke up for his night feeding, he ate and went back to bed; that simple! So I was free to bake whatever I wanted. However I was ill prepared because my husband had class and I was just expecting the worst from our kiddo so I didn't plan for anything or have the ingredients I needed. So I baked something very basic (and yet still new!). It's almost a shame because I had all the time in the world tonight.

Now before I start this post, I want to state something: I am not expecting this blog to be anything more then just fun and a challenge for myself. I am not a professional or even creative. And I am not a photographer, in fact a large amount of these photos will probably be taken on my cell phone. I don't have the time to try to master food photography. And my food probably won't be pretty very often. I can accept the fact that I am an amateur. So that being said, here is number one off my bucket list; baguette.

From Taste of Home Baking
Crusty French Bread
1 pkg (1/4ounce) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees)
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs Canola Oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 to 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Cornmeal
1 egg white
1 tsp cold water

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the sugar, oil, salt and 2 cups of flour. Beat until blended. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a stiff dough.
Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl, turn once to grease top. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch dough down, return to bowl. Cover and let rise about 30 minutes.
Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface. Shape into a 16 inch x 2 1/2 inch load with tapered ends. Place loaf on baking sheet. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 25 minutes.
Beat egg white and water, brush over dough. With a sharp knife, make diagonal slashes 2 inches apart across top of loaf. Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool.

As you can probably see from my picture, I think I put a little too much egg wash. Also, it's a pretty wonky shape. I've never kneaded dough before and only really shapped it once so I don't think I did it exactly right. But overall, I think I did decent. The bread taste good and that's what matters, right? One thing you should know about me is I don't care if food is ugly or not, if it tastes great then I'm stoked. Cosmetics aren't so important to me.

I'm slowly realizing that baking with yeast isn't nearly as scary as I used to think. I used to browse recipes, see something that looked good but shy away as soon as I saw the ingredient 'yeast' listed. Something about making sure you got water to the right temperature and yeast dissolving just seemed too difficult. That was before I realized that there is such a thing as instant yeast, but I now also know that active dry isn't difficult either. So yay for conquering fears! You can't grow as a person (or baker) til you can overcome your fears, right?