Oh That Julia...

I'm on 4 hours sleep and 2 cups of exceptionally strong coffee right now. As my dad use to say.. I don't know if I'm punched nor bored. Whatever that meant. But I always remember him saying it when someone didn't know what the fakk they were doing. HAR! Bread. Yeast. Lisa. Panic. Nail-biting. Nerves. Dropping things. Kitchen prayers to the Yeastie Gods. Bread makes me sweat. Yanno? I don't really know why as it is truly an easy thing to make. My Gawd, prep time is like 1.5 minutes and the rest is just days of waiting. Okay well maybe I'm exaggerating some.. but it feels like that's the usual scenario when I'm baking bread. Hurry up and wait! And holy bejesus this recipe was all about the wait. First rise.. 4.5 hours. The recipe called for 3 hours (I believe? I'm mental right now, kids!) but my dough had not tripled so I let it go an extra hour & a half. Second rise.. 3 hours. Again, I went over because my yeasties were taking their own sweet fakkin time. My guess is the house was a bit chillier than normal, although I can not be sure as I baked my bread a couple weeks ago and can't remember exactly what I did or what happened. I CAN NOT REMEMBER WHAT I WORE TO WORK YESTERDAY - DO NOT JUDGE ME. Now before I go on.. lemme thank our lovely hostesses, Mary of The Sour Dough and Sara of I like to cook, for a great challenge! And thank YOU wee baby jebus, for whispering into Mary's ear "NO sourdough.. Lisa still hasn't gotten over killing her last one." :P ***crickets*** Moving right along... So what I do remember is that things went along swimmingly, other than the retarded rises. But it was at the shaping and final upside down rise that everything went to hell in a handbasket. My first boule was not "tight" - I didn't grasp the concept of rolling/passing it between my palms to get that tight membrane once I flipped it over. I did a little better with the 2nd boule, but in the end this is what I got: And no, those are not my silicone breast implants laying on a bed of flour and covered in plastic wrap. YOU'RE NOT FUNNY. I don't have breast implants!! The return of the phantom Smudge. :P Mmm hmmm.. pretty farkin flat they were. Which is exactly the way my boules from the Potato bread challenge turned out as well. 'Sup with that? Am I fondling my faux breasts too aggressively? My boules did rise once they hit the heat, but they were still pretty tiny. I should have made just one big round French-named shape. BUT all was not lost, although thin and mammory-like looking, they were delicious. We thought a tad bit on the salty side, but we love salt.. so that was a good thing. The crust was crisp and chewy and the inside had lots of bubbles, which I adore. And strangely, as most ppl would say the bread tasted excellent after first cut, we think it was 1000x's better the next evening as garlic toast. Best garlic toast we've ever had! So much so, that I froze the 2nd boule for our next spag & balls night. :) There you have it my friends.. a rather uneventful (at least I think?) challenge.. the fear is all in my mind which is silly because making bread is nothing to be scared of. Great big thanks to Mary & Sara.. you gals rock! Can't wait for March's challenge.. I hear it's going to be delightful! ;) Okay.. I'm done.. go start clickin' - over there -> well over 600 amazing blogs to choose from! And start planning accordingly now.. close to 800 next month kids. :D The Daring Bakers.. We WILL rule the planet one day!! MUAHAHAHAHAAA! Can you imagine? A world filled with nothing but bakers. Wait. What's that? Ohhh.. that's just my hips and ass sobbing. :P xoxo HOLY CRAP - I forgot to mention.. Argh. Sleep.. blessed sleep.. I forgot to mention that this recipe is from none other than the lovely Julia Child and if you'd like the recipe, click on over here for it. :)