Bread baking can make for a long night

I am still up.

I'm waiting...

Waiting for bread to bake.

When I got home from work, I pulled the pre-ferment out of the fridge.  To make the dough easier to incorporate into the final loaf, I cut it up into smaller pieces and left it out on the counter covered with plastic wrap for an hour.  This helps take the chill off the dough and helps it rise quicker.

After dinner, I began to mix my french bread dough.  It seemed to come together quite easily and I got a little over confident and declared ( to myself) that I would be done in record time!

This was before I noticed that the house was pretty cool (cold day today, around 20).

I started the rising process around 7 and sat and talked with Robyn and got a chance to play with my little girl for a bit.  Around 8:30 I checked on the baguettes*.  They had only risen about 25% of where they should have been...No matter, I'll just pop in Lego batman, and kill some time.

By 10pm, the loaves were ready to go in the oven**.  I'm still waiting for the final verdict, but I think they'll be ok.  A little misshapen, but ok.

*I really need to work more on forming the batards and baguettes.  I'll try to get some pictures of the finished loaves, but they were pretty sad.  Quite the lumpy, uneven loaf.  Then again...they'll still taste good!

**I like to use parchment paper on a cookie sheet to cut down on the mess and to make it easy to pull the loaves off.  Well, this is the first time I've used it in an oven OVER 400 degrees....The parchment paper singed where it was hanging off the end of the cookie sheet.  Next time I'll make sure to cut it to size.  but it sure looks cool!