Trial #1: I make bread (hopefully)
Jan. 20th, 2006 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trystinnI've chosen Focaccia as my first attempt because it does not require starter, which I don't have because I just bought the yeast (along with $60 of its favorite baking companions) this afternoon - I am, however, making starter tonight so I can attempt rustic breadmaking on Sunday and Monday. (Details to follow)
Observations
#1: Recipes for bread are suprisingly and shockingly short on details.
#2: There is now more flour in my hair than in the mixer.
#3: Husband was sufficiently wary enough to offer to go pick up dinner from a restaurant - thereby, in a singular master stroke, making himself scarce during this amateur attempt at breadmaking while getting to be the hero when he arrives home with hot food that I have no responsibility or requirement to cook.
#4: The smell of yeast "curing" has got to be the strangest smell on earth, one that not even the bassethound will beg for a taste of.
#5: "Lightly flour surface" is a bald-faced lie. "Massively flour surface" is of considerably more use, exponentially.
#6: There is now more flour on my clothes than in my hair (see #2).
#7: "Room temperature" is too subjective a term to be of any use.
#8: Waiting for yeast to "cure" is almost as boring a task as waiting for dough to rise, and only manages to be a tad bit more interesting because of the science involved in creating new life; albeit yeast-life.
#9: Two kitchen timers are barely enough for this attempt.
#10: "Bread starter" is surprisingly bizarre enough to warrant the need for comparison pictures for grading the accuracy of one's attention to detail.
#11: Friends you have not heard from in months will call you to chat and catch up while you are trying to bake bread.
#12: Baking bread by hand is sufficiently interesting an experience that truly, it should be an assignment for 1st degrees at Lammas. And for all I know, will be.
Update to come when focaccia comes steaming out of the oven. Stay tuned.
"Gorgeous bread, the topping is rosemary, sage and kosher salt:
Willing Volunteers:
And, yes, it tastes FABULOUS"
Observations
#1: Recipes for bread are suprisingly and shockingly short on details.
#2: There is now more flour in my hair than in the mixer.
#3: Husband was sufficiently wary enough to offer to go pick up dinner from a restaurant - thereby, in a singular master stroke, making himself scarce during this amateur attempt at breadmaking while getting to be the hero when he arrives home with hot food that I have no responsibility or requirement to cook.
#4: The smell of yeast "curing" has got to be the strangest smell on earth, one that not even the bassethound will beg for a taste of.
#5: "Lightly flour surface" is a bald-faced lie. "Massively flour surface" is of considerably more use, exponentially.
#6: There is now more flour on my clothes than in my hair (see #2).
#7: "Room temperature" is too subjective a term to be of any use.
#8: Waiting for yeast to "cure" is almost as boring a task as waiting for dough to rise, and only manages to be a tad bit more interesting because of the science involved in creating new life; albeit yeast-life.
#9: Two kitchen timers are barely enough for this attempt.
#10: "Bread starter" is surprisingly bizarre enough to warrant the need for comparison pictures for grading the accuracy of one's attention to detail.
#11: Friends you have not heard from in months will call you to chat and catch up while you are trying to bake bread.
#12: Baking bread by hand is sufficiently interesting an experience that truly, it should be an assignment for 1st degrees at Lammas. And for all I know, will be.
Update to come when focaccia comes steaming out of the oven. Stay tuned.
"Gorgeous bread, the topping is rosemary, sage and kosher salt:
Willing Volunteers:
And, yes, it tastes FABULOUS"
no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 03:49 am (UTC)My standard is a really basic, fairly quick, herb loaf - rosemary, basil, bouquet garnis mix, whatever's handy. I also, for the more finicky stuff, really like the recipes out of the Breadbaker's Apprentice book - the cranberry walnut celebration bread gets people asking after it every time, and the long rise time white loaves do too.
I do my kneading in a large stainless steel mixing bowl (5 quart, I think) sitting on the floor - none of the counters in this apartment are a good height for me to knead on. It works surprisingly well, because I can work the dough against the curved suface of the bowl, and I don't need lots of added flour.
It has the added benefit of being a lot easier to clean up (though putting down an old tablecloth or some paper for the bits of flour that poof up in the kneading process helps.)
When I'm letting it rise in the winter (ok, in Minnesota, it's chilly here), I stick the bowl (covered) in the corner between the two sides of the heater. I know people who run the dishwasher and then crack the door and stick the bread bowl over it. Or some who turn on the oven on low for about 30 seconds, and then stick the bread in there. Proofing is very much a seasonal variant thing. Mostly, I don't care as long as it rises.