The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Hi from the Newby

Joe_The_Baker's picture
Joe_The_Baker

Hi from the Newby

Hi,

First of all let me tell you all that my username is supposed to be ironic :)

I have joined the forum because I can't bake.

I am a fairly decent cook and I continously change and adapt recipes.

I tried the same thing baking... Big Mistake...Huge!  But I guess you all already know that.

The first thing I learned this week is that Baking Powder and Yeast are NOT the same thing.  So for my first loaf of bread I got a raw piece of dough.  I went to bed a little frustrated with the effort but refused to throw away the dough.  Next morning i put said dough in the oven to finish baking.  Now as you may have guessed it was dry by then so I sprayed with water then threw it in the oven at 325 ( I figured low heat will thoroughly bake it right?)  Ok so to end my story I ended up with a loaf good enough to brake a window with.

Now I am sure that I'll be back here asking lots of questions and most will not be smart so Please have some patience.

Joe.

alabubba's picture
alabubba

Well, Now that you have brick making down...

Bobby Flay likes to say that cooks cant bake. I think he is dead wrong. To get consistent results from baking you need to understand the science behind it.

If you look at the top of the page there are "LESSONS" Start there. The search bar is your friend, Ask questions=get answers. There are lots of bakers on here who have made every mistake you could ever make.

Including bricks...

allan

foodslut's picture
foodslut

.... so I can tell you that if you can cook elaborately, you can learn how to bake.

I've gotten nothing but supportive assistance from the site participants here, so keep at it.

Good luck, and please share your successes with us!

Tony

Ruralidle's picture
Ruralidle

Hi Joe

Welcome to TFL.  I am sure that a lot of us have made bricks before we learned how to bake properly.  My first attempts tasted OK but looked terrible and had a texture that was nearly as bad.  That prompted me to seek professional help and I went on a course.  This site has so much good advice in it that an competent cook/chef may well not need to seek any other help.  But you have - hopefully - learned the first rule of baking - Follow the recipe (at least until you have some experience under your belt).

Happy baking

Ruralidle

Chuck's picture
Chuck

Quote:
... I am a fairly decent cook and I continously change and adapt recipes. ... I tried the same thing baking... Big Mistake...Huge! ...

Maybe it wasn't such a big mistake after all  ...it was just that the timing was off.

I find fiddling with bread recipes (both ingredients and procedures) to be a lot of the fun. I recommend soon learning enough that you can reasonably do so. Sure being too casual about following recipes is frequently a lousy way to start out baking bread, but it makes great sense as something to strive for fairly soon (2-month? 3-month? 6-month?).

To reiterate what you seem to have already stated, I think the problem here was assuming that being a fairly decent cook meant you already knew everything you needed to know about bread baking. As you found out, there's a lot of non-overlap between cooking in general and bread baking, and cooking experience doesn't provide a whole lot of guidance to bread baking.

foodslut's picture
foodslut

.... for a "Bread 101" experience:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/lessons/yourfirstloaf


Enjoy!

Joe_The_Baker's picture
Joe_The_Baker

Wow.  This was interesting.  It's basic but i learned a lot.  Thanks for the link.

Joe_The_Baker's picture
Joe_The_Baker

Thank you all for the encouraging comments.

I am proud to say that I baked my first "edible" bread.  It may not be great and the consistency seems a little variable but hey It tasted great to me!

Here is how it looked...(Yes looked. past tense cause it's all gone)

Not sure if the picture posted.  I hope it did.

Thanks all.

alabubba's picture
alabubba

Here is how it looked...(Yes looked. past tense cause it's all gone)

Not sure if the picture posted.  I hope it did.

Look at that beautiful white plate on that expansive white background, Must have been good, ain't even a crumb left...

msbreadbaker's picture
msbreadbaker

Hi, How did you get pics of his bread, nothing was on my thread except text. Wonder how that happens.

Thanks, Jean P. (VA)

Chuck's picture
Chuck

Quote:
Look at that beautiful white plate on that expansive white background, Must have been good, ain't even a crumb left...

"White" background and "white" plate and "not a single crumb" - in other words: no picture (insert laughter here...).

Don't worry, you're not the only one that didn't see anything. The mechanics of posting a picture on TFL are a little different than what many folks are used to, so that bolixing up the first attempt to post a picture is fairly common.

alabubba's picture
alabubba

I was in a jocular mood, here is the faq on photo posting. Hope it helps.

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2960/posting-photos-faq

msbreadbaker's picture
msbreadbaker

Ouch! I guess I fell for that one! Jean P.

Joe_The_Baker's picture
Joe_The_Baker

Ok Now that everyone has thoroughly made fun of me... I finally learned how to post a pic.

 

My first un-brick

This is my first non-bricked loaf

 

Aussie Pete's picture
Aussie Pete

Hi there,

I was more fortunate than you. You could only smash glass. I was able to use mine as a door stop.............Keep trying....Pete