Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge

I was given (to borrow) The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart *cough* last year *cough* and still have yet to get through the book. I started reading this amazing book, but once school started back up, it went to the back burner. While browsing some other cooking blogs, I noticed people attempting a Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge where they want to make one recipe from the book every month until they get through the entire book. I was very impressed and encouraged by this challenge to get back into really reading this book! However, there are many down-sides to this particular challenge. There are TONS of formulas for making bread in this book and to do one every month seemed like a long and rather weighty commitment. Plus, I felt my friend would like her book back...within the year at least, so that particular challenge was out. I decided to come up with my own challenge of sorts. I quickly went through the book and picked out the breads I have some interest in making and compiled my own list of bread challenges which include 18 formulas:

Anadama Bread
Bagels
Poor Man's Brioche
Challah
Ciabatta
Cinnamon Buns and or Stcky Buns
Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Corn Bread
English Muffins
Focaccia
French Bread
Italian Bread
Kaiser Rolls
Lavash Crackers
Wheat Bread
Pizza Napoletana
Potato Rosemary Bread
Sourdough

Now to decide on a time-frame. I don't want to limit myself to one bread a month because it would take me well over a year just to get through my choices of breads. I also don't want to require myself to make something every week because that might be too much for some weeks. This is my final decision: I will make at least 2 types of bread each month in order to get through my list in 6 months. This still seems like a long time, but It allows me some wiggle room as well as a deadline that seems as though it ends. I also like that I can get through the lesson part of the book, make copies of the formulas to use during the challenge and FINALLY give my friend back her book so maybe she could make bread with me! Just a thought since she has a blog too. ;-)

Anyway, just to be clear, I will not be posting the formulas to the breads to my blog like I normally do for other recipes. This is because I noticed the other members of the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge decided not to have those floating around on the web and I will follow that as well. It is such a great book that I hope the fact that the recipes aren't online, that you will go buy the book yourself! Here's a link to the book for whenever you're ready to buy it:

http://www.amazon.com/Bread-Bakers-Apprentice-Mastering-Extraordinary/dp/1580082688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279435076&sr=8-1

I wanted to give you all a heads-up on what is to come and I have decided to start my challenge with Cinnamon Raisin Bread, so keep a look out for that post coming soon. :-)