January fifth was the first official distribution day for Bread Club. December was a trial month, with six friends. This was different, a blogger had written another article about me, and people had seen it. I have people who have signed up strictly because of word of mouth. Phew!!!! I took a deep breath and made a plan. People would still pick up after 4pm, but how was I going to bake twelve loaves of bread. In my tiny oven. Well. 

I thought I would stagger. The first bread of the month would be my signature boule. I fed my starter, and built it up after being gone for a week, and was ready. Thursday night I got all six bowls two batches a piece all ready. They would proof over night, and I would start baking bright and early in the morning. 

I got three loaves baked before I had to drop Ella at school. I thought, the rest will be fine, I'll start baking after the school singalong.... 

Nope.

I got home, and started in on the rest of the dough. It was a little sticky, but I thought, 'that will be great! It'll be light and airy."

Nope.

I put a batch in the oven. I happened to open the door, just to give it a spritz of water (create some good steam) and it was just in time for me to keep dough from dripping off the edge of the stone and into the bottom (like where the pilot light is) of the oven. So that went in the trash. I still have dripped dough crusted on my oven door.

Shoot.

This was not looking good. I tried another batch. Slipped it on the stone. I peaked about 15 min later, and it was a flat slightly lumpy mess......

After doing some research I realized that my bread wasn't just over proofed (where I could punch it down and let it rise again.) It was over fermented. Done, nothing could save it. This had happened to me before, maybe. A while ago, but not with such high stakes. 

I started over. 9 loaves. 

Then I ran out of flour at loaf five. 

I bought more, and kept on going. Everyone got their bread, it was tasty. But what an expensive, stressful, and time consuming mistake to learn from. 

Next week will be better.