BBA Challenges 1 and 2

I decided last month to join the BBA Challenge that has been going around TFL, mostly to make myself follow a recipe exactly since I'm guilty of tinkering where I think it could be better :) This has been especially hard for me, but it's interesting to hear about other people's thoughts on our forum.  That being said, I won't post the recipe because I don't think Reinhart would really appreciate that, and since I know I followed the recipe, I can just look it up in my own book.

May was a super busy month, hence the lack of posts.  It was also a month where DF and I decided to go on a no extra sugar and fat kind of restrictive diet- hence all the bread baking.  Between the audition trip from hell and getting scuba certified, there wasn't hardly time at all for blogging!

BBA Challenge #1 was the Anadama bread.  I'd never had this before and was curious to try it.  The molasses definitely gave it a nice dark sweetness, and the cornmeal I used was fine ground white cornmeal since it's what we had on hand.  It was kind of nice and nutty though, but not sure if I'd make this again since it's not so punch wow amazing that I have to have it all the time.  It was definitely soft and fluffy, which we both appreciated.  Having to remember to start the soaker the night before means it's harder to make in a pinch.

BBA Challenge #2 was the Greek Celebration Bread: Artos.  I chose to make mine without the dried fruits, but did add all the extracts (lemon and almond) and spices (everything under the sun) that the recipe called for.  It made an exceptionally fragrant bread that grew to ginormous proportions during the final proof!  I thought making just a boule was going to be a little too boring for me, so I shaped the small boule and overlaid the cross as directed for one of the alternate versions.  I also used some of my overzealous SD starter in place of the poolish (also an option - see, I can follow a recipe!).  The end result was this wonderful bread which was also very light and fluffy in texture.  It would've made fantastic french toast if I could have figured out the best way to slice the dratted thing.  While the shape is pleasing, it's definitely harder to figure a way to slice it into manageable pieces.