A new challenge

I've been following Tuesdays with Dorie and Daring Bakers for some time now, and have stumbled upon Bread Baking Babes, Bake Your Own Bread (abbreviated to BYOB) and many other baking websites which bakes through a specified book or recipe.

The thing on my mind is, perhaps I should embark on a challenge. I have many books sitting in a cupboard in my room and I'll admit; I've never bothered to do at least 90% of the recipes in there!
There's prolly a treasure gem or two that I would never find unless I set hands on said recipe and do something.

So I figured, perhaps I should consider picking a baking book which I find easy enough to finish by this year. Whaddya think?

Recently I found a blog called breadbasketcase and the person who owned it, Marie, actually made that blog to document the breads that she made through Rose Beranbaum's The Bread Bible book. And boy did she finish that book in less than a year! Hooray for her :D
Imagine finishing 82 breads in one year. Now that's an achievement!

I've been thinking between 3 books, but all of them have their pros and cons. The first book, was prolly translated straight from chinese, and has insufficient directions for a beginner. I mean, there was some recipe that needs grated cheese but what cheese??? In fact, if you just read the ingredients, there is no mention of cheese whatsoever. And its a cheese bread for god's sake, too.

The other book is by Don Yong, who owns the Malaysian Institute of Baking school (which I had contemplated on going to sometime in the middle of last year, but an IT course eventually won over me). The book is awesome, and there are explanations on why this flour gives better texture than that flour, but after going through the book, I have to get a waffle pan and find where to get malt flour (what's this?). And no, malt flour isn't on "optional".

The third book, which I'll most likely choose if I decide to accept this challenge, is Breadmagic by Alan Ooi. Looking through the book, the recipes are pretty straight forward, although I won't know what to do with a French Hard Bread (dip in coffee? But I don't drink coffee in the morning) and a whole load of Danish pastries. But maybe my kind neighbours and friends might help out in the eating process.

While all these is going on, the new semester of my course starts today! It's the mark of the third semester already and I'm raring to go!