Divine Smells

I'm learning to bake (good) bread. And it makes our house smell YUUUUUMMMMYYY. Before we went overseas I had a couple of years of attempts, but no great successes with homemade breads (the years of mediocre to bad bread). Now I've found the right combo of recipes and altitude adjustments, things are grooving around here. I'm all for the ease and convenience of store bread, and I still buy buns for the sausages and hot dogs we love to eat around here, but recently I learned that in addition to the loads of extra stuff bread just doesn't need, some manufacturers add SCENT to their packaging to make their bread more appealing. Seriously? So now about once a week I bake a loaf of sandwich bread and about once a week I bake something fun.

This week we're using up apples. Travis' mom and her friend Ruth Ann stopped here for a couple of days on their way to their next adventure (Egypt) and brought a heap of perishables, including what seems like an entire bushel of apples. I knew if I baked a pie Travis would eat one piece and the rest of the pie would just sit and fester, wilting away while we all just passed it over for less sweet snacks. Lo and behold, a recipe for Apple Challah. This, I think, will get eaten.
Based on Travis' reaction while it was baking, and his hovering as I pulled it out of the oven, I don't expect it to linger!