I’ve become progressively more fascinated with baking over the past few months, turning out far more cookies and pastries than I ever should have in my house at one time (though my boyfriend’s co-workers now adore me).

So I joined the Daring Bakers, a collective of food bloggers with a passion for all things that come out of the oven. I thought that it would be a good way to push my boundaries a little, try some new things. After all, they’ve made lemon meringue pie, bostini cream, sticky buns…it would be fun!

But…you want me to bake bread?

The panic I felt at watching my printer spit out the 10 pages of Julia Child’s French Bread recipe surged upon reading note after note on kneading, rising, yeast, bread ovens. My head swam. I was sweating. What on earth was I going to do?

Well, I was going to try. And try. And try. And try again.

The first two batches of dough went with a resounding thwack into my garbage can. First thing learned: yeast from a packet apparently can be dead, even if it’s not expired. Go figure.

Batch three. Live yeast. More lessons. For example, don’t leave a 1 1/2-hour rise alone overnight, no matter how tired you are (don’t start a 9 hour process at 2 PM either). Also, when they say to let the loaves rise on “stiff floured canvas,” a floured kitchen towel does not suffice. Only one made it off the towel at all; the other was left to soak in the sink until I could scrape the dough off with a spatula.

But this is also where things got better. The one salvaged loaf, while probably the ugliest loaf of bread I’d ever seen, was still bread. It was edible, though one side was saltier than the other (thoroughly mix salt with flour — check). I was emboldened, excited. I would try again.

Batch four. It was rising fine, came together with the springy elasticity I had come to love when kneading. My biceps were still sore from batch three (no standing mixer in this tiny kitchen), but the thwack-thwack-thwack of the bread hitting the board moved me forward.

One rise, then two, then they peeled off the flour-coated parchment paper with only minimal sticking. I made my ragged cuts in the top with a shaking hand, and put them in the oven.

And voilà. Two loaves of bread.

Again, they wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests in the near future, but they were toasty and crusty and evenly salted. I’d done it. There was flour on every surface of my kitchen, in the pocket of my apron and probably in my ears, but I’d done it. I’d made bread.

I felt exultant. Triumphant. Exhausted. And daring.

Thanks ever so much to Breadchick Mary (The Sour Dough) & Sara (I Like to Cook) who hosted this particular event.

(This post first appeared on the Cookthink Blog)