It takes a mentor that is good to really teach you how to make bread. I can teach the basics in a 10-12 hour session.
I make all of my own bread; loaf bread for sammiches, baguettes, bread sticks, cinnamon rolls, all of it. I haven't bought bread in years.
/johnny
If I ever break out of my reclusiveness again, my next companion will be better at making bread than I am. Bread has a spiritual quality to it when it is made right and just out of the oven. My first wife grew up walking past a local bakery every day from school. She was given a nickle by her mother, to buy a personal loaf of fressh baked bread, which she would eat on the walk home. ... What a woman! She was one heck of a cook, too.