1 Degree Days Are Perfect For Bread Baking

January has been extremely cold, one morning when I left for work the temperature was negative 14. This makes it easy to stay in the house with the roaring pellet stove & two lap cats. This being said, with the extra time I've been spending around the house, I decided to try something fairly new to me - baking bread. I've attempted to make it a couple times before, it came out "ok", but I'd like to master a recipe & make it my own.

I started with mix of a couple recipes that I found by searching on-line for a standard french bread. I added a little extra yeast (because that is what was in my yeast packet). I also ended up adding extra flour because the dough seemed very sticky- looking back, perhaps it was supposed to be that sticky, I'm certainly not a bread expert...yet. 

 I started by dissolving the yeast in warm water

Other ingredients in this recipe were salt, touch of sugar, flour, olive oil & whatever you want to top the breads with for flavor. 

I topped the breads with garlic, parmesan & cheddar cheese & brushed with olive oil before baking.

My counter looked like this: 

The final product! 

I am very happy with how these loafs came out but am looking forward to mastering the recipe & toppings! I think my next attempt will include roasted garlic.