Today I have made yet another loaf of French bread. I've followed the recipe from Mark's Black Pot pretty faithfully. I would have pictures for this blog of the preparation but it appears the mystery camera decided to not save them.

This dessert was once again taken from the excellent Dutch Oven Madness. The only variations of note were usage of a 12 incher instead of a 10 and an extra quarter cup of sour cream. I think both were detrimental to the result: the larger size meant a harder to cut cake (each slice was about 2/3 cream filling 1/3 cake mix) and the extra sour cream gave the impression the batter was moist to the point of being undercooked. Both fixes would lead to a neater, more easily served snack.

Another recipe from the excellent Dutch Oven Madness. This recipe uses yeast aggressively and doesn't sit out for too long. My end result was a fluffy, dense and slightly moist crumb and a pale and slightly tough crust (probably not enough coals on top). The technical aspects of the bread were easily enough achieved but I was not a fan of the taste. The combination of the bland taste and density reminded me of dumplings. My mother was a fan.

My first recipe from the excellent blog Dutch Oven Madness. This woman has turned into the primary inspiration for this blog and the primary supplier of new and exciting recipes. Her goal is to blog a year's worth of dutch oven food cooked for her family. I am so very, very grateful for her blog.

One of my noble goals for dutch oven productions is a loaf of fluffy, tasty bread. I plan on eating it warm with butter. This New York Times article was highly recommended by both the Intertubes and family. My results were not very successful.