Bread! I started baking bread back circa 1981-2 as a poor graduate student in Philosophie, Universite' Laval, when I cooked for myself and a couple of roommates. I'dI walk down the hill from our appartement in the old quarter to the nearby "organic" co-op" and buy a 25 kg cloth sack of whole wheat flour and a 500 gr bag of yeast, then schlep it all back up the hill to the apartment by bus -- much as I handled 3 months of laundry. The routine was to make the equivalent of about 4 24 oz loaves; big bowls of yeastily rising dough scattered all over the kitchen. One of the most smug-making compliments I received was from a woman guest who exclaimed, "Your bread is like cake!" I've made it ever since, on and off, by hand, over the years, although I'll confess to a brief, adulterous fling with a bread machine way back when they first came out (easy, momentarily thrilling, ultimately unsatisfying).
Oh, do please stick with it! A few mishaps and you'll get that "sense" of what a successful bolus of bread dough feels like. The whole knack or skill is to get to know the "feel" of the right ratios of flour and water. The amount of other ingredients -- hell, even yeast -- is secondary. As long as the dough has the right consistency and "feel", you can use 1 tsp for ~ 6 c flour (I don't really measure) or double that; it all turns out the same. Likewise, you can add a cup of oil, or none; sure, too much oil makes a more compact loaf, but within reason, no big difference. Salt? Sure, a half-cup will be noticed, but just toss it in and experiment. I don't stoop to adding milk or eggs (faugh!). Really, oil, no oil, salt, no salt -- the results depend on the flour/water ratio (tho' even this has ample tolerances) and, above all, on the kneading. I've started baking bread again recently (and will continue if I can find more flour in our coronavirus-depleted shelves), and I have to say that the results are worth the very small input of effort. This effort is, basically, 2-fold: (1) mixing the ingredients. (2) Kneading for 10 minutes. Apart from that, the rest is just waiting and eating, except for cleaning the mixing bowl. I've got enough (~6 cups, +/- 2 cups) for another ~5 lb of bread before I run out. My daughter is with me for a week furloughed from college (share her with her mother), and I think I will learn her in the tricks o' the trade. On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 6:51 PM Max S <msht...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Leah, > > I’d attempted baking bread a few years ago, which resulted in several ruined > kitchen towels and dough-based rocks. So, I had decided that I’m not a baker, > and that was that. > > Until your post many weeks ago — it inspired me to try baking bread again. A > dozen loaves and close to a hundred pizzas later (not exaggerating — suddenly > the kids started liking my cooking, so I had to oblige... several times per > week), I’m still doing it! > > Confession: I did go with the “artisanal bread in 5 minutes a day” master > recipe, but I’ve kept the same container all this time, which lends the bread > a sourdough flavor eventually. > > Thank you! > > - Max “rising, no matter the cold” in A2 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/b08a6547-4856-423b-8f9b-978d32e071b1%40googlegroups.com. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgt-WGFTbkHkfqNLmoqhhhLOEex7u80BC4o1Gm4ju%3DGTPQ%40mail.gmail.com.
