Covid bread making

I have a recipe for French bread that we all absolutely love. It is the recipe of our old neighbors in Woodbridge, the Freemans. I remember when Rachel brought a load of her warm bread to our door one night just days before Christmas. I needed to have the recipe. Since then we have always called it Freeman bread and it is excellent. And rather easy to make. 

Last month we hosted a work dinner for Brian's colleagues and then Canadian spouse brought along a beautiful round "boule"of homemade sourdough bread. She explained that when she was evacuated last year during covid, she started making bread- like so many other people did- and she has now perfected it. And i would agree with that! So I wanted to learn how to make it...

We decided to co-host a cooking class for the other attache spouses at my house. There were 6 of us and it was a lovely afternoon. Here is my first attempt at making my own bread- 

Notice how it is not at all golden brown? Crazy enough, the gas ran out while I was baking- and I don't know how to switch over our gas tanks! I was so disappointed. But, it really didn't matter because it turned out delicious, just not pretty. 

And my favorite part of that first boule I made- an air pocket turned into a perfect heart shape that I discovered when I sliced into it- 

That made me feel so much better about my ugly bread!

My second attempt was a huge success- 

 Beautiful, but a bit to crusty for my liking. So, I will continue to experiment until I get it just right.

It's funny that I am bread making while we are currently in our second lockdown here in Jakarta. Back in March of 2020 I remember thinking that I too would try the sourdough covid craze, but then we evacuated and that idea went out the door pretty quickly. So, here I am a year later finally doing it! One silver lining of another lockdown... time to embrace and enjoy all the unscheduled time again.