My corner of the institution: Baker chick...

I used to be a killer. A cold blooded yeast killer that used scalding as my method.

"The water is too hot," Grandma would tell me. "Just hot enough to hold your finger. It needs to be a little warmer than warm."

Yeah, because "a little warmer than warm" makes perfect sense. I used to watch as Grandma would stir up bread without a single measuring device. She would dump a little of this, and a little of that and we would have delicious warm bread. There is nothing better than warm bread with a little butter, sweet butter, or honey butter. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Pie crusts were my thing back in the day. I could (and still can) make flaky pie crust. The trick is fat and ice cold water. I'm sure you all wanted to hear that fat is a big component of flaking golden pie crust. I guess I could lie and tell you I remove all calories from it before pressing it into a plate. Believe what you want.

Since living alone and having a little time on a few select weekends I've decided to try my hand at yeast again. To my surprise, I haven't killed any. I guess it must be that crucial step of standing at the tap with my index finger under the stream trying decide if the water is "warmer than warm."

I will blame Pinterest for my recent surge of creativity and baking experimentation, and the fact I have recently discovered that they actually mill flour that is just for bread. Who knew? I guess it has some proteins or something that are gluten'y', blah blah. I'd have to ask an expert for the real difference because I forgot what I read on the outside of the package, and I tossed it.

A co-worker "pinned" a no-knead bread recipe that seemed easy. It had very few ingredients (flour, water, rapid rise yeast, and salt) and I actually had these ingredients in my cupboard. So I pulled them out and went to work. Stirring it up was simple, but it is one sticky doughy mess once it raises for a couple of hours. But, the stickiest part of the process was the baking.

Let this be a lesson. You should always read the entire recipe before going balls to the wall. It had to raise, not once - but twice. I didn't realize four ingredients were going to take up an entire day. It said to put the bread on a pizza stone. Uh, I don't have a pizza stone (there's a Christmas idea, Mom). Instead I got creative and flipped over a cookie sheet, and put foil on it because parchment paper is way to expensive so I didn't have that either. At this point I'm thinking, 'this could all be a waste, what If the bread doesn't cook right? Ah, screw it' and that was that. I also dusted the top with flour. Well, it was an attempt at dusting, but let's be honest - I just dropped some flour on the dough ball.

Once you let it raise another 35 minutes you have to cut the top of the bread to let the gasses out, and there were pictures to show how! No pressure there. I mean, what if I didn't cut it right and the gasses made the loaf explode. That's all I need. Crusty bread parts inside of my already "oh so clean" oven. Then came the trickiest part. I needed a pan of water in the oven under the bread. What?

Apparently steam makes the outside of the bread crispy, or rock hard, or whatever. The instructions said to put in a broiler pan when preheating the oven, so it's nice and hot. Okay, I don't have one of those either, so I substituted a roasting pan. Close enough. I slid the makeshift pizza stone in and dumped a cup of water into the roasting pan, slammed the door shut and waited.

Here is the result. The recipe is here. As you can see, mine looked nothing like what they pictured. It may not have looked Panera-esque, but it tasted fabulous!