Bread for the soul

I took a mental health day today - didn't really feel like working, was feeling tired and sore from my kinked neck (happened a week ago, still hurts). I did keep in touch with the office, being I spent most of my time on the computer, but I was looking for something "to do" with my time. I was thinking of that great sugar-free apricot delight log they sell at Cobs Bread, and thought I'd try to find a recipe for something similar. My googling travels took me many places, I found some great diabetic recipe sites, that then led me to researching what I might try to make for holiday baking (considering my boy and I should NOT be eating sugar, and I can't fathom Christmas without home-baked cookies). I'm not so sure about the diabetic shortbread cookies, but will give them a try (I found two versions, one of which includes eggs!?!!?).

Anyways, as I was doing a series of searches for recipes, I stumbled across a site that does contests and one such contest was "Waiter there's a....in my bread" leaving people to come up with something in their bread recipe...well, what a gold mine I found - tons of amazing bread recipes, one of which was oatmeal buttermilk that I just HAD to try today. I checked out some other recipes on the site that I may have to return to try, but lo and behold this oatmeal buttermilk recipe led me to instructions on forming the loaf on another site - A Year in Bread
This site was another goldmine...I spent a good part of the afternoon reading last year's posts on bread making from the three authors, and ended up making ANOTHER bread - Italian Rosemary Raisin Bread. Unfortunately, my oatmeal buttermilk bread was too dense (but still yummy), and my rosemary raisin bread was baked a little too long and is too brown (but it's still cooling, so I'm not sure if its affected the taste). I've since figured out I don't let my loaves rise long enough, my house is far too cool for them to truly double in size in 1-2 hours, so I need to put them in a warmer spot for longer. As well, I learned that in forming the loaves, I shouldn't push the dough around so much so as to not lose all the air bubbles...I'm notorious for 're-kneading' my dough when forming, so alas, I'll have to practice again later in the week... once we finish these loaves