learning 'bout bread {and eating too much bread.}

I have a friend who bakes the most amazing bread from scratch.  She came over to give me a few pointers this week.  

Mostly because my bread from scratch often ends up better used to build a wall than to lather with butter and enjoy over dinner with friends.  

We made a batch of french bread.  One "shaggy".  One "smooth".  

It's why I needed her to come over.  I needed to FEEL and SEE what's "shaggy" dough and what's considered "smooth".  

And now I know.

And then we made another batch of dough from a recipe that she's had for 15-ish years.  It can make dinner rolls, hamburger buns, hotdog buns, cinnamon rolls or even just a plain old loaf of bread.  

It's... the perfect dough. 

(said like Craig & Arianna....you know, the Spartan cheerleaders from SNL..oh, heck,let's just watch a little clip for giggles...don't let the little 30 second ad scare you away.  This may in fact be the funniest 4m 55s of your day!  ps - sorry for the SNL-style crudity around the 4 min. mark...)

Back to the bread baking...

I'm not even kidding about the perfect part.  

For heaven's sake...

Just look at these beauties.  

Everything was so incredibly yummy.  And light.  And fluffy.  And even healthy-ish.  Healthier than store bought anyway.  I can pronounce ALL the ingredients!

And my house smelled sooooooo good!

I knew we'd be making french bread, so I whipped up some of the Pioneer Woman's Olive Cheese Bread mixture.

Went so fast I hardly got a picture of it!

So now that I know how the dough should FEEL and LOOK, maybe I'll become a bread baking queen. 

Jillian Michaels would not approve of the carbohydrate overdose that was my life this week.  

But Paula Dean would.