This Post is About Bread
Jan. 28th, 2025 05:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spryngI started baking again this month after many years and previously only failures. Bagels were a gateway bread, it turns out; my brother had made them a handful of Christmases past. I knew if he could make them, then surely I could. See, this is what sibling rivalry is for.
So I made bagels at the beginning of January and they were not only super easy but they turned out delicious. Then I made a second batch that were even better and I thought to myself, maybe, maaaybe... I could try bread? You have to remember, every single previous attempt at a basic round bread had turned out inedible, so I'd long ago taken it as a fact that I simply can't make bread.
But bagels are bread! So I already had. What was the harm?
Besides, I needed a distraction from the oncoming train that's the new administration. Something that would keep me off of the news sites and bog me down in details. Turns out baking is great for that. I found r/breadit, the King Arthur Flour recipes, the spread of pages devoted to the science of gluten formation in the Science of Cooking, and down the rabbit hole I went. Instead of reading NYT, I was reading about autolyse. Instead of hearing about the obscene amount of executive orders -- most of which will get tied up in lawsuits and court anyway -- I heard about poolish and resting times.
Now I've made two basic round loaves and two sets of baguettes and all of them have been edible -- not only that, the last baguettes earned me a solid thumb's up from Cabin Girl, whose favorite bread is baguettes. I feel like I've made a breakthrough; and yes, part of that breakthrough is autolyse, aka just fucking putting water and flour together, barely mixing it, and letting it rest for 20min before you knead. Seriously, how did I not know about this before? It's like the dough magically kneads itself and the "oh fuck is this kneaded enough? is this over kneaded?" question can finally be put to rest.
Aside from being a sink for my endlessly roving mind, there's something just soothing about the act of making bread. It's simple, yet you have to pay attention, and there's all these little factors that can come into play, making every loaf a little different. Now that those loaves aren't just being tossed in the trash, I feel like I have room to play.
So... huh. 38 years old and I'm learning new tricks. Taking something I'd almost absorbed as a Fact About Myself -- "I can't bake" -- and turning it around. I did the same with macarons back in August and now I'm tempted to try it with gardening in the coming months. I'm playing piano, relearning how to sight-read music, even writing something fun that will never see the light of day.
Maybe 38 is my year of turning "can't" into "can."
So I made bagels at the beginning of January and they were not only super easy but they turned out delicious. Then I made a second batch that were even better and I thought to myself, maybe, maaaybe... I could try bread? You have to remember, every single previous attempt at a basic round bread had turned out inedible, so I'd long ago taken it as a fact that I simply can't make bread.
But bagels are bread! So I already had. What was the harm?
Besides, I needed a distraction from the oncoming train that's the new administration. Something that would keep me off of the news sites and bog me down in details. Turns out baking is great for that. I found r/breadit, the King Arthur Flour recipes, the spread of pages devoted to the science of gluten formation in the Science of Cooking, and down the rabbit hole I went. Instead of reading NYT, I was reading about autolyse. Instead of hearing about the obscene amount of executive orders -- most of which will get tied up in lawsuits and court anyway -- I heard about poolish and resting times.
Now I've made two basic round loaves and two sets of baguettes and all of them have been edible -- not only that, the last baguettes earned me a solid thumb's up from Cabin Girl, whose favorite bread is baguettes. I feel like I've made a breakthrough; and yes, part of that breakthrough is autolyse, aka just fucking putting water and flour together, barely mixing it, and letting it rest for 20min before you knead. Seriously, how did I not know about this before? It's like the dough magically kneads itself and the "oh fuck is this kneaded enough? is this over kneaded?" question can finally be put to rest.
Aside from being a sink for my endlessly roving mind, there's something just soothing about the act of making bread. It's simple, yet you have to pay attention, and there's all these little factors that can come into play, making every loaf a little different. Now that those loaves aren't just being tossed in the trash, I feel like I have room to play.
So... huh. 38 years old and I'm learning new tricks. Taking something I'd almost absorbed as a Fact About Myself -- "I can't bake" -- and turning it around. I did the same with macarons back in August and now I'm tempted to try it with gardening in the coming months. I'm playing piano, relearning how to sight-read music, even writing something fun that will never see the light of day.
Maybe 38 is my year of turning "can't" into "can."
