Worst. Thing. Ever.

Failed bread. I've had few cooking experiences that compare in disappointment, embarassment, and disgustingness. Breadmaking is so formulaic that's it's easy and so satisfying that it should be done all the time. The anticipation of a baking loaf is so great, and the disappointment of failing so much greater. I would put this on the same level as burning popcorn or screwing up Easy Mac.

But by far the worst thing is that I can't stop myself from eating it.

I have a couple theories on what might have screwed it up. The most plausible is that I killed my yeast by adding buttermilk too soon. I gasped in horror as soon as I added it, but I thought I saw bubbles so I went ahead. It also could still be too cold for bread to rise well (though I doubt it, it's in the 70's in direct sunlight), or maybe my dough wasn't gluteny enough (I'm skeptical of my current flour, but my dough had a pretty good consistancy; I don't think that was the problem).

This post ironcially casts my cooking in a bad light, because most of it has been so good lately. This is the first product in a week that's stayed out of my mouth long enough to photograph. My recent successful activity includes:

• Buttermilk Biscuits
• Tomato-Basil Soup
• Jambalaya with Crab (seafood item #3)
• Puff Pastry (by far the coolest thing I've done, I'll try to post on it soon)
• Steak with Yogurt Gravy
• Exceptionally Flavorful Stocks (Chicken and Beef)
• Fajitas (with homemade marinade and homemade wheat tortillas)

If you're interested, the above (usually successful) bread recipe is:

• 1 1/4 cup water (this time I did 3/4 cup water and 1/2 cup orange flower water)
• 1 T yeast
• 1 T sugar
  
• 1 cup milk (buttermilk this time)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 T fake honey (real honey too rich for my blood)
• Pinch ground cloves
• 6 cups flour (I mix four kinds, which probably won't relate at all to what you get in the store.)
• 1 t salt

Warm the water, add sugar and yeast and let yeast wake up. Scald milk with butter, add honey and let cool to about 120 F. Mix liquids (though not if you are using buttermilk, my mistake above) and add 1 cup of flour and cloves and beat for about a minute. In a big bowl, mix 5 cups of flour together with salt. Pour batter into flour and mix together. Knead until you break a sweat, probably adding more flour. Let rise once in the bowl, once in the pans. I covered the above loaf with an egg wash and sesame seeds.