I overcame my fear of baking with yeast this weekend!

I have never successfully been able to make a bread product in all my years of baking. I have tried over and over again with no real success. Until this weekend. I decided I wanted to make focaccia and that I would make it come hell or high water. So I found a good recipe, read it over a few times to make sure I knew what I was doing and dove in Saturday afternoon. One of the things that I always had trouble with was the proofing stage. I never was able to find just the right not too cold/not too warm spot. Well, you can imagine how happy I was when I found out that my electric oven has a proofing setting. I swear, this made all the difference. After the first rise, the dough was so beautiful and smelled so yeasty that I just knew it was going to work. Then, when I spread it out on the baking sheet, it stayed where I stretched it to and did not keep snapping back. The dough was amazing!

The focaccia turned out perfectly and tasted delicious. It went especially well with the homemade ricotta I tried this weekend (also a first). :)

Now I cannot wait to jump back into the kitchen and try my next baking with yeast project!