After the past couple months of baking furiously, I can feel my interest waning, since I basically did what I set out to do.
Problem is, I was just given 50lbs of flour that I had previously asked for, so i gotta buckle down and keep at it. Oh, my partner has also been spreading the love around, and while people don’t EXPECT bread, they do very eagerly anticipate it.
As usual, recipe is the tartine country loaf, this was part of a 2× batch. Instead of 200g whole wheat I did 100g whole wheat and 100g wheat germ. Tastes quite mild, overall a good batch
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Do you eat it? Bread can become a whole weird hobby like coffee where you do all kinds of extra bullshit as part of the ritual because you’re chasing some kind of nebulous minor gains in taste or something.
Our bread recipes have become simplified over time to be useful in a busy home for making daily or every few days bread. We go through phases where we will make 2 loaves and it’ll all be gone in 2 days, and other times where we make a loaf that lasts a week.
But inevitably we eventually want bread again.
The ritualistic, nit-picky vibes were this last stretch. I wanted to open the crumb as much as possible, so i fed the starter every day and was super super focused on it
Your freezer is your friend here. You can bake all day once, then freeze loaves and just pull one out before going somewhere and truly, no one will ever know the difference if you freeze them right. Stockpile for your sake.
Also, the holidays are coming up. Let the free flour earn you street cred.
Not op but any tips for freezing well?
Basically, fully cool and maybe even hours longer to ensure less moisture.
Thaw slowly, then 5 minutes in the oven to revive the crust.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2023/12/20/freeze-bread
Uffff lookasso awesome, had some great bread yesterday and wish i had more.
Looks good! I reckon you could push the bulk another ~30 mins next time.
I try to mix up my loaves when I start getting bored: soy & linseed, rye & guinness, gochujang & roasted garlic, etc. Find fun inclusions, mess around with different loaf types / shapes, make baguettes or focaccia. There is a whole world of amazing bread out there to be curious about!
Yeah, now that the base recipe is about as good as I’m gonna get it, inclusions would be good.
Admittedly, I’m a pretentious purist and have looked down my nose at anything but the simplest recipes, but I know the vast majority of people aren’t bread snobs and really like inclusions
That’s fair. Even without inclusions there are lots of other ways to play with different recipes though: different grain/flour blends at varying levels of hydration, different mixing and shaping methods, milling your own flour, cold bulking/multi-day fermentations. The more you experiment the more you’ll learn about breadmaking in a wholistic way. Speaking from experience, it’s easy to get sucked into making one recipe which works well over and over and get bored/think you’ve mastered it, but really there’s always so much to learn if you choose to!
If you want an interesting challenge within the sour dough category, how about injera? It’s an Ethiopian sourdough flatbread. Tasty as heck. Ever since I had some at a music festival I can’t get enough.
I’ve heard of that, never made it. I’ll have to check it out
I am now expecting bread. However, I don’t know where you are, so I don’t expect any from you. But there’s an oven in my house, and bread supplies are easy to get…
I just pulled my starter out of it’s exile to the fridge after my last disaster of apparently not knowing how my oven works. Maybe I’ll bake next weekend.
I believe in you
Lol thanks. I have no idea if it’s ADHD, I have ghosts or, I can’t read but twice now I’ve set my oven 100° lower than I’m supposed to and not noticed. Like I SWEAR it was correct and I go to check it a few minutes before it should be done and it’s just white as a ghost. Ugggghhh lol
Bread ghosts hovering inside your oven, smiling and saying, “Here comes another! Welcome.”
If you can lock it down, fresh bread is so good.
I’ve got a good challah going but sourdough and I are struggling. My starter looks amazing and I’ve had really no issues with that. It’s all the baking 😂
I’m all about high temps and a real real dark crust.
Mine all straddle the line between browned and charred (and a little charring isn’t unwelcome in my opinion)
Good-looking loaf! If you need diversions, sourdough pizza is a slightly different beast, and the wide world of bread has horizons to explore. Try a tanzhong-based milk bread, or a green onion focaccia. Some benefit from the slow ferment of sourdough, and it can be interesting to balance starter with bloomed yeast
Also, you can take a break! Flour keeps pretty well
I have made king Arthur’s Japanese milk bread, which has tanzhong in it and it’s heavenly
You were just given 50lbs of flour?
Parents, they’re got lots of Amish stores nearby
