First attempt at making any kind of bread...

So, my challenge today was to make a loaf of bread. Of course here in Germany they have loads of bakeries with loads of bread...white bread, whole wheat bread, really dark bread, bread with sunflower seeds, bread with pumpkin seeds...really any bread you can think of. However, they do not have a good cinnamon raisin bread (at least not where I live). So, I figured I would give it a shot.

I searched my favorite recipe site (recipezaar.com) to find a recipe in which you didn't need a bread machine seeing as I don't have one. Well, I found one and I thought I could do it. (Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/Worlds-Best-Cinnamon-Raisin-Bread-Not-Bread-Machine-98867)

Everything started off good. I got all the ingredients together that I needed, measured them and got the butter and things to room temperature. My mom always did it this way, so I guess it just rubbed off. (Thanks mom! You're the best!) So, I add the warm water to the yeast and heated up the milk and everything was going well. Then I noticed that the yeast wasn't "foaming up" like the directions said it would...oh crap, what do I do now??? I guess at this point I should say the equipment that I have...I have a big metal bowl, a wooden spoon and elbow grease. I guess when I added the warm water to the cold bowl, it cooled it down considerably, and didn't activate the yeast properly...or something like that. So I did what anyone would do in this situation...I set it over the small pot that the milk was in and made a make-shift double broiler...Ok...now it's getting foamy/frothy...saved!

Next to the next panic...I had one egg...Luckily, I have a store about 2 minutes from here, so, quick dash over there...saved again!

Ok, so at this point, nothing else goes wrong and it actually goes pretty smoothly. It doubled in size, so I didn't mess it up with the yeast disaster. They were really lovely. And the taste! Oh the taste! My first attempt at bread was definitely a success! Not that I am tooting my own horn or anything... :) But just look at that swirl!!!