Adventures in baking .... the saga continues

My baking endeavours have perked up lately thanks to sprog no. 2 finally learning to sleep properly. I made two loaves last week (one was sun dried tomato and the other was cheese) but sadly forgot to take any picture to prove that I actually did it, but I did – honest!

The ugliest loaf in Cardiff

This, er, beauty was baked because we'd run out of shop bread and I didn't have my house key with me so couldn't go out and get more. Resourcefulness kicked in and I decided to do what I'd been meaning to for ages – bake a big loaf, rather than two small ones (which is what I usually do).

I'd made the fatal error of meddling with the dough after it had risen. What you are supposed to do is put the dough into the tins or onto a baking tray once you've finished kneading. For some reason I thought I had to leave the dough in a mixing bowl and then shape and/or transfer to a tin. No, dummy, that's what you do if you're making pizza dough.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, as I wrestled with the gooey white stuff I realised what I'd done and tried to smooth out the ball of dough but to no avail. As you can see in the picture, the bread came out with an interesting outer crust.

I was pleased to see that the insides were OK. Here's a close up of the spongy innards:

Bread ... mmmm ... dough!

I can't really tell if it's worked properly. I mean, it tastes alright so I suppose that indicates success....??? It's a bit heavier than commercially made stuff, but that's probably because I'm not using any nasty preservatives or anything.

So, the next step is to do it properly and try some more exotic combinations.

If you have any suggestions, drop me a line in the comments. Ta!