So this evening I pulled out my copy of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything and perused the bread baking section. He's got some great tips in there for making bread, storing unbaked dough and other time-saving suggestions.

One thing I didn't realize, however, is that his recipes call for instant yeast. I'd planned to use the dry active (i.e. normal) yeast I had on hand (and which I knew was alive) but upon discovering that the recipes called for instant yeast, I decided to try the instant yeast I had left over from my previous baking experiments (with the no-knead bread). However, considering I'd last used this yeast in March I was skeptical that it really was still "live."

Still, I figured I was only out $.23 if the yeast wasn't alive so I gave it a shot Bittman's way. My hunch, unfortunately, was correct: I let the dough "rise" for an hour and it didn't increase even a millimeter in volume. While it was not rising, however, I did some research for other French bread recipes and managed to find one (at Epicurious, here) that - like Bittman's recipe - uses a food processor to mix the ingredients, but does so with normal yeast.

So I printed that off, dumped out the failed dough and started over. This time, with the "good" yeast (from Bob's Red Mill; I love Bob's Red Mill) the dough started rising nearly immediately and is continuing to do so! According to Mark Bittman, you can let dough rise for however long you like (well, within reason) because the longer it rises the better it tastes... so the plan is to let it rise overnight, punch it down, divide it up into 4 pieces and freeze three of them. The fourth piece will hang out in the fridge for the day and then tomorrow evening, I'll bake it up to have with dinner. Maybe I'll whip up some of this to go with it!

Once the French bread was going, I started digging around for a sourdough bread recipe. Epicurious was rubbish for finding a decent starter but I did run across this site, which walks you through making your starter, feeding it and making bread from it. I've never been a huge fan of sourdough bread, but - oddly - making a starter sounded kind of fun, in the way a chemistry experiment was always oddly kind of fun, I guess.

So I mixed up my flour and water and my little starter "pet" is fermenting happily on the counter. At least, I hope it is. I guess time will tell with this little experiment!

Anyone out there have favorite French bread, Sourdough or other bread recipes they're willing to share? (I adore Challah but unfortunately it contains eggs so that's out...) I'm considering experimenting with making a rice or spelt-flour starter for my brother's sake (since he's allergic to wheat)... who knows: could turn out well!