Bread
Sunday, October 28th, 2007
Warren, Connecticut. We’ve been buying bread from a bakery in the next town for years, and it’s great stuff. However, it’s expensive as they use all organic and high-end ingredients. They recently raised their already high prices, and that was the tipping point for me. I got my wife to teach me how to bake bread at home, from scratch using good ingredients. Today we knocked out four loaves of what looks like, excellent flax, oat, whole wheat bead. I love the process; it’s about as close to yoga in cooking as you can get. Tomorrow we’ll see if it tastes as good as it looks.
Richard, what a scrumptious looking loaf of bread. Did you take it with an 85mm lens? And how did the bread turn out?
Gary, yes, the 85L took this and I’ll let you know how it tastes tomorrow.
Beautiful, Richard. And I’ll bet is smells great too. FedEx will be fine, thanks. ;)
Saving that money on the bread by baking your own should take the sting out of buying the new 85mm lens. I like your thinking. How many loaves will it take? ;)
Mmmmm… fresh bread to go with your great fresh coffee :-)
(Checks flights to NY …) :-)
Dale: A truckload. ;)
Jon: Come on over, you let me using your atomic Canon, I’ll let you use my Canonball.
> Tomorrow we’ll see if it tastes as good as it looks.
WHAT?! TOMORROW?! Fresh bread is BEST when soon out of the oven. Let it sit for 10-15 minutes, then gently saw through it with a good knife, spreading it with butter (not margarine, but butter).
Heavenly.
Jody: you’re right. Next time (in two weeks). Thanks.
Thanks for the very inspiring photo, Richard! For a while, I used to bake three loaves at a time, varying the flour from whole grain to simple bread flour, varying the flavors from plain to sourdough, and the added bits from none to home-grown peppers.
Looking at this I feel like getting started again.
FYI if you’re waiting till tomorrow for splintery crust to soften, you can vary the crustiness of the outside by letting it sit in a bag or even a semi-airtight container and letting it gently steam-soften its crust. Remove when the softness suits you, let it finish cooling, and then return to a fresh bag or box (or just eat it all like we frequently would)
Manish, Good advice, all of it. Anne seems to think that the bread has a bit too much oatmeal in it, otherwise is perfect. I think next time we’ll back off the additions and just do a simpler bread.
All of the high end bread we’ve bought from the good bakery is sourdough based bread and I’m going to start a batch of sourdough soon and use it as starter for my next batch. Sourdough rules, no doubt about it.
Let me know when you get started again, maybe by posting a shot of a loaf!
I used to only eat bread I made myself - Sourdough free-form on a pizza stone (for the awesome crust factor). I used to make it for the restaurant in a wood-burning oven, but you can take these things too far :) Welcome to the wonderful world of cathartic bread-baking!
Caitlin: Don’t think I didn’t think of you when I was making this bread dear, I know you’ve slung a bit of dough in your day and you’re good at it. Anne’s older daughter Jessica has done same and ran a bakery for a while in Santa Fe.
I’ll get to free-form blobs soon but for now, it’s regimented bricks for this control freak.
I agree with Jody. If that bread was in our house one of them bad boys would have been gone in a maximum of 20 minutes.
Ahh– Richard…my friend…. let us know a day ahead next time you and Annie are planning to bake bread. Maybe Jody and I can come over and show ya how it’s done, you know, with the butter and all….
sheryl: It’s a deal. Stay tuned.