Keep Your Mind on Your Baking!

Some days I don't know where my mind goes.  I was baking 2 loaves of New York Onion Rye Bread from Peter Reinhart's book Bread Baker's Apprentice.  Everything was going smoothly.  The loaves were proofing in my make-shift proofer (microwave with cup of boiled water in it) but then disaster struck. 

I didn't pay attention to the bread as it was rising.  The recipe said 90 minutes to proof so I went with 90 minutes, oh so wrong!  Bread was proofed and I hadn't even started the oven!  In my tizzy, I set the oven 30F too cool and didn't realize it until 10 minutes or so into the bake. Bleh!  So I watched my two loaves of bread meet in the middle of the baking pan as they rose (sideways) on the baking sheet. Argh!!  No oven spring for me with that cool oven.  Here are the loaves as they look, cooling on the rack.  NEXT TIME - I'll check the bread about half way into the proof time. NEXT TIME I'll read the ENTIRE recipe through several times to get it straight in my head and not ASSUME anything!