Let the education begin….

And day number 2!

Today’s topic is to educate people on something you know well. Hard to think of something that I can write about succinctly, and maybe make a bit interesting!

I decided to talk a little bit about baking homemade bread. Nothing fancy, just some basic info. I learned how to bake bread at a fairly young age. My parents went through a phase of baking all,of our bread from scratch. They learned from a book called “The Tassajara Bread Book” by Edward Espe Brown. It is still available!

One of the most basic things is to understand that heat kills yeast. Cold does not, it slows it down, but does not kill it. You can freeze bread, and it will rise after it thaws and warms up. Ere on the side of caution, and use lukewarm water, because water that is too hot will kill the yeast, and your bread will not rise. The method in the Tassajara book is not “quick”, but it is so satisfying, and there is a lot of flexibility in the times that you do the different stages. The bread starts with the sponge, which is the yeast, water, a sweetener and flour. Salt retards yeast growth, so starting without the salt allows the yeast to get established and grow more quickly.

People seem to be afraid of kneading, but to me it is very meditative. He gives lovely instructions with hand drawn illustrations. You do not have to be “perfect”, you want to incorporate the flour into the dough. There are several periods of rising, and he tells you about freezing the dough, and baking it later. There are also many fancier recipes, including a killer cinnamon bun recipe!

Hope this encourages you to try making homemade bread if you’ve never done it!