The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

I'm a cook not a baker

Gawker's picture
Gawker

I'm a cook not a baker

Hello I'm Gawker. 28 with a wife and daughter and a second kiddo due this summer. I'm a cook and have been for as long as I can remember. Growing up I did homework in front of the TV simultaneously taking notes from various cooking shows for things to try and I LIVED for learning about new things and trying new tastes and being able to say "Yeah I made this, no it didn't come in a box, and I'm sorry but there's no recipe...I just know in my head how things react and in the end we get dinner."

 

I HATE to bake. Everything has to be so exactly measured and recipes have to be followed so closely and carefully and everything's got to be just so or the whole thing ends up like the Hindenburg...my ego can't deal with that. I'm impatient and I like to throw a little of this and a little of that and make it up as I go. All of you amaze the crap out of me :D

 

That being said I've been DYING to learn about bread and having found this site I've been lurking without registering for right around 2 months now. I've baked exactly ZERO loaves of bread in that time because I was afraid but with the house to myself for the weekend I'm taking the plunge. In the kitchen about 15 yards from where I sit is a bowl containing what I hope will be Floyd's Daily Bread and I wanted to go ahead and register and say hi so that WHEN I screw this up (and I have faith in my ability to do that) I can ask where I went wrong or how I could have fixed things.

 

Charles

Floydm's picture
Floydm

Hi Gawker,

Welcome to the site.

I can't guess where you'll screw it up, but I will guess that what you end up with on your first try won't be beautiful and won't have wide open crumb but will still taste awesome.  And that if you try it a couple of more times you'll start to get a feel for it so that after the fifth or tenth time you will be comfortable just eyeballing it, which is when the real fun begins.

Good luck!

-Floyd

flournwater's picture
flournwater

Welcome to the club, Gawker.  I spent years as an excellent cook and terrible baker.  "Terrible" isn't truly strong enough an adjective to describe my initial capabilities.  I couldn't make a loaf of bread fit for human consumption, eventhough I've been cooking for more than fifty years.

I've been baking bread successfully now for over two years.  Two things happened that changed my life in the kitchen.  First, I found this site.  Second, I read "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" and made every one of the bread formulas it offers.  I failed at some, that's how we sometimes have to learn, but that book and the help I got from this forum has been a blessing.  The down side is that I developed something of an obsession with bread making; I've since gotten that under control.

Looking forward to learning about your experiences.

First advice:

Forget about the bulk measurement approach to Floyd's Daily Bread.  Get a good scale and begin your bread making journey to success using it as a better foundation for learning.

Chuck's picture
Chuck

I HATE to bake. Everything has to be so exactly measured and recipes have to be followed so closely and carefully and everything's got to be just so or the whole thing ends up like the Hindenburg...my ego can't deal with that. I'm impatient and I like to throw a little of this and a little of that and make it up as I go. All of you amaze the crap out of me :D

No, not really.

The prevalence of old-style recipes that gave measures by volume and that gave awfully vague directions like "knead until elastic" belies that. Such recipes were thought adequate by folks that knew what they were doing, and their results said they were right. (Also, there are folks -admittedly not the majority, but some- who bake entirely by feel without ever measuring anything.)

IMHO, the biggest reason for the more exact measurements and more precise instructions these days is to avoid all the many many ways a neophyte (who's learning from a book rather than from their mom) can so easily go astray and bake a "brick". Once a baker follows the newer recipes long enough to get a "feel" for the dough, they can and do improvise like crazy.

My advice is to stick to the recipe the first couple of dozen times or so to avoid a lot of heartache, all the while fully expecting admission to the wider world of much looser recipe interpretation in the near future.

(You're right though that "cooking" and "baking" don't have a whole lot to do with each other. I've heard from too many folks who figured they could "just do it immediately" based on their "being a really good cook"; that overconfidence led them to waste a few weeks and make a lot of bricks, after which they were chastened enough to start at the beginning:-)

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Well fair enough, and I know that if I actually stick with this quest of mine I'll need a scale but in the interum I'm making a suicide leap just to see what happens. The loaves are rising the oven is somewhere between "good LORD that's hot" and maybe two or three degrees below "seriously I'm having trouble breathing here" So since I have a few more minutes before I throw these things to the wolves I wanted to put a couple of things down for you guys to tell me what I'm seeing here...

I made a poolish 1:1 and a packet of Red Star yeast and met my dad for lunch so I wouldn't be tempted to jump ahead. Got home a few hours into the poolish and mixed about 3.5-3.75 cups of flour with around 12 ounces of water stirred and left it to autolyse. Here's where things started to feel out of sorts...

After the flour and water sat for 30 minutes I came back to mix in the poolish and salt to make loaves and I kinda felt like the autolysed mixture was too tight. Too dense. It had some real nice stretch like the gluten was there for sure but I felt like there was just about no way that this mass was going to intermingle with the remaining ingredients...like...EVER. Mixed the salt into a little extra water thinking I'd just get the stuff a little more saturated and worked that into the dough with my hands in the bowl until things got a little less....solid maybe? Stirred in all the remaining blah blah sit in a bowl blah blah fold like a letter blah blah etc

So when I started to form my loaves here's the impression I got. "Wow holy cow these are way softer (think light and fluffy) than I expected!!!" BUT inside the loaves I felt like these were denser stringy (think lumps maybe?) areas that lead me to expect the finished product to have fluffy crumb areas and really chewy places where (if I actually allowed someone else to try this) you might think "Ok what is wrong with this stuff?!"

Really nervous about this and they're not even in the oven yet...

 

Gawker's picture
Gawker

I have just witnessed a miracle....I slashed my first loaf (YAY ME!) quickly transferred it to the back of a well floured cookie sheet spun round and slid it onto the screaming hot pizaa stone in the oven dumped a cup full of water into the cast iron under said stone and closed the door and watched my loaf explode (you guys say "oven spring" I think)

 

WOW³

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Here's the secret to winging it with baking: "I just know in my head how things react..."  Cooks, after all, do use recipes.  And they also adjust recipes, deviate from recipes, and flat-out innovate without recipes.  They do all of that within known interactions of ingredients and techniques.  For instance, you wouldn't attempt to use poaching as a method for achieving a fried egg.  There's nothing wrong with poaching, it just gives you a different outcome than does frying.  However, you might choose to use a poached egg in a dish that calls for fried eggs.

Once you know how things work, you can wing things in baking, too.  BUT, to be able to repeat the outcome consistently you want to know how you got from point A to point B.  That usually requires a certain amount of measuring quantities and employing a certain process, then writing it all down so that you can do it again.

For instance, I made a batch of rye bread this morning.  Didn't use a recipe, just made use of what was on hand and the knowledge gained from previous experience.  Did I achieve my objective for this bread?  Pretty much.  Flavor and texture are enjoyable and the bread will be great for sandwiches, which is what was requested.  Will I be able to do it again?  Not exactly.  Measurements (those that I did make) were volumetric rather than weight-based.  

So, you can innovate while baking and you can wing it if you wish to.  As with cooking, you will need to operate within a framework of knowledge and experience to get the results you want with your ad libs.

Have fun!

Paul

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Ok so I'm not 100% prepared to post pictures here yet so I'm going to just post the public link to the gallery on my facebook page where I've posted this expiriment. Criticism more than welcome and as soon as the loaves cool enough to cut and eat I'll get crumb shots and taste tests out of the way.

PHOTOS

proth5's picture
proth5

I've always said that there are two culinary personalities: cooks and bakers.

Cooks can't aways bake.  Bakers can cook, but they cook like bakers - that is - give them a recipe and they can make it work but they are seldom "a dash of this and a blob of that" cooks (although some are exceptions).

Bread baking is the most forgiving of the baking disciplines.  In my "hippie whole wheat" days I did a lot of improvising (but I always added a poolish to the autolyse - some may advocate not, but I think so) and the results were never horrible, but not always the best bread it could be.

These days I am concerned more with being consistent in my baking, so formulas are a big deal for me - but they needen't be for anyone else.

My advice to a cook is to learn baker's math.  Once you understand the proportions of the ingredients there is more room to improvise and more ability to predict the outcome. Then you can "wing it."

Those pastries/cakes/candies though - move too far away from the proven formulas at your own risk...

Have fun and happy baking!

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Ok here goes...photo time now that I figured it out. First off the recipe yielded two loaves. I'm only focusing on one of them here because honestly everything was essentially identical until the end product.

Ok here it is slashed on top. You can see the other loaf in the background. I feel like I should have slashed deeper than I did on this loaf and so on the second one I went for broke.

Here's a shot of the oven spring I got. I literally could not believe what I was seeing. This is the point where I went "Boy I wish I had cut it deeper..."

Now we're out of the oven and crackling noisily as it starts to cool. The crust seemed really hard at this point and I was pretty impressed with that but it softened (I assume with steam from inside) as it cooled. I ended up with a very crisp thin crust backed by a layer of delightfully chewy feel as I ate.

Ok this is the second loaf. Cut deep, gave the loaf a lot more character and my only theory as to why it's so much darker than the first is that it sat out while the first was baked thereby having more time for the outside to dry? An ugly loaf to be sure but honestly I'm satisfied.

Ok here's where things got REALLY exciting for me. I couldn't believe how fluffed out the crumb was. No there aren't any egg sized holes and there's definitely some places that are more dense than others but I think it looks pretty decent.

I'm not sure if a seemingly random array of holes and bubbles like this is considered desireable or a fault. Like should I be going for a more uniform look or is this somehting along the right track?

I'm baffled that I was able to pull this off. A thick slice slathered in butter and I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a slice of bread so much. The crisp crust that took a bit of tugging to tear through (akin to how a bagel can be so delightfully chewy) a soft fluffy chewy inside...this was an experiment that was completely worth the trouble.

Side note - the tough cord feelings I had about the internals of the loaves as I formed them appear to have had no detrimental effects (at least in this loaf) as I have yet found any portion of the loaf (ok so I ate more than I should have) that displays anything that I feel can be attributed to what I felt. Om nom nom and thanks for the kind words!

flournwater's picture
flournwater

Congrats Gawker  -  you're a baker.  See?  We told you you could do it.

Some nice looking bread there. Be sure to set a schedule for a check on the scales and  waist measuring.  I find that once a week works pretty well. ;>}

Ain't that OCD thing a drag?

Gawker's picture
Gawker

ROFLMAO good call! I've got about 15 pounds I could already stand to let go of as it stands (so my doctor tells me anyhow) I just haven't had any motivation to care. I have a Great Dane puppy coming from a breeder in SoCal around the end of April though so I'll be a lot more active taking him for walks and what not...mebbeso that will help keep my gut in check through this new journey :D

rossnroller's picture
rossnroller

First, congrats, Gawker. Wasn't that hard, was it? And what a lovely open crumb! Bloody good first effort!

On the baker/cooking discussion, I have to say I don't understand these claims about there being a world of difference between the two. I say this as a life-long food freak and keen domestic cook of 30 years standing. Since 'discovering' sourdough 2+ years ago, I have made all our bread, routinely bake several times per week, and have continued to cook just about every night, as in my pre-bread-baking days. I see the two activities as complementary. This notion of cooks being able to bake, but bakers not being able to cook, or cooking in a formulaic baker's style - or whatever - seems like a forced and artificial construct to me.

When cooking, I sometimes, though not often, follow a recipe exactly if I'm trying a new dish that is unlike anything I've done before. More often, I'll add my own tweaks, because like most experienced cooks I know what works and doesn't work, and am used to customising dishes to suit the preferences of my partner and me. And sometimes, I improvise and create dishes from scratch, but again, do have some reference points - eg: other recipes, or the traditions of national cuisines with which I am familiar.

In other words, as a cook, I am often 'intuitive', but also sometimes precise - some dishes require precision, others do not. Further, cooking encompasses many techniques and processes - especially if, like me, you're interested in multi-national cuisines. You move between - for example - woks, mortar and pestle, slow braising at low temps on the stovetop, steam baths, frying, oven roasting and - yes, BAKING (which is surely just another aspect of cooking?).

Further, don't we, as cooks, bake cakes and biscuits on occasions as a matter of routine? I do, my mother did, my friends' mothers also, and although guys tend not to bother about cakes and biscuits, many do...I would have thought this was just another aspect of cooking.

Baking bread is certainly a specialist area with its own set of principles, processes and techniques, and requires an understanding that develops over time, and that continues to develop if you strive to get better and keep trying new breads. In fact, I don't think the learning ever ends with either baking or cooking. But in the end, I do not see the two as different worlds.

For me, they are regions of the same world that segue into each other, rather than two distinct areas divided neatly by a border. This said, in my view assertions about cooks being able to do that but not this, and bakers this but not that are at best truisms that only apply in a very general way - at best.

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Actually the hardest thing is leaving the blasted stuff alone and waiting all those hours...I'm working on my patience ;)

I'm not sure I see baking and cooking as cleanly divided but I DEFINITELY see in MY life that I feel much more comfortable with an open flame and a skillet where I can see things in real time and make changes in real time and make adjustments to the finished product based on it's current condition. Baking on the other hand you put everything together close it off in the oven for a while and if it's wrong when it's done you're hosed. Yeah I know that's overly simplified and pessimistic but hey that's just me...BUT I'm coming to you guys to learn so that ought to count for a point or two in my favor eh? ahahaha

Chuck's picture
Chuck

This notion of cooks being able to bake, but bakers not being able to cook, or cooking in a formulaic baker's style...

Yeah, about "different styles" I've suspended judgment for now.

But that extension goes much further and in a different direction than the original sense. The original -seemingly quite different and less debatable- sense was simply that being an experienced cook doesn't provide a huge headstart to learning to bake. (In less politic words, an experienced cook can bake a brick just as well as the next guy:-)

That seems much easier to sign up to, regardless of whether or not you buy into the "different styles" forumulation too.

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Actually I think you hit the nail on the head right there!

"an experienced cook can bake a brick just as well as the next guy"

I've done it several times actually and honestly I didn't mean it as an offense I mean it in the sense that bakers amaze me and I was hoping all of you would take pity on me and help me learn!

Hi my name is Charles...and I'm a brick baker with two decent loaves under his belt. :wave:

rossnroller's picture
rossnroller
being an experienced cook doesn't provide a huge headstart to learning to bake

Agree with you there, Chuck.

Cheers
Ross

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Wow thanks everyone, I was pleased with my first time out but it makes me especially happy that you all approve as well. I think what I'm going to do to continue along in this little quest of mine is cut the recipe in half so that I only make one loaf at a time. I think that will allow me to place all my attention on a single entity (and let me bake everything at once) not to mention keep me from eating my weight in "homework".

I also think I'm going to make this same recipe several more times, number one because it was delicious, and number two because it will let me see changes and improvements in a comparative light. I think one of the things that intrigued me the most about this recipe was that it literally was nothing more than flour, water, yeast, and salt...and it was AWESOME!

On another note something occurred to me about my methodology for this attempt that I thought I'd bring up and see what you all thought. Remember where I said I made my poolish with a packet of Red Star? When time came round to make the remaining loaf ingrediants I realized that said packet was as much yeast as the entire recipe called for so I omitted the additional yeast and left it entirely up to the poolish to leven the loaves. Next go round I'm going to measure out some of the packet for step two and see if I get a different amount of loft.

Janknitz's picture
Janknitz

and go to Costco or Smart and Final (or other bulk store) and buy yourself a 1 or 2lb bag of yeast for $3 to $5.  This is enough yeast to last up to a year (store most of it in the freezer for better preservation) and not only will you save a ton of money on yeast, but you will find it easier to measure out precisely what you want. I know you're not big on precision and measuring, but the yeast is the one thing you want to have some control over as you perfect your loaves*.  Well, OK, you should measure the salt, too.  But water and flour can always be varied to see how changing them affects your results. 

I'm on the waiting list at the library for the book "52 Loaves" and in that book the author did just what you're planning--he made the same loaf every week for 52 weeks and really perfected it.  I'm looking forward to reading the book.  It's a really good idea to get something down really well, but I'm a card carrying member of "short attention span theater" and really prefer to play with a broad spectrum of breads.  Nevertheless, I really admire the persistence of someone who can make the same loaf again and again ;o)

*In reality, the amount of yeast doesn't matter--you can always adjust for the amount of yeast by changing the rising times and/or temperatures.  But if you want to experiment and have some way of keeping track, you need to at least know how much yeast you are using and eventally you will probably want to understand the hydration level of your dough (which means weighing ingredients on a scale and learning "baker's math"--at least until you learn to feel the various hydration levels in a particular dough). 

Jo_Jo_'s picture
Jo_Jo_

As I have read through your posts, I see a kindred spirit in you.  I cook and bake, and in both endeavours I am constantly experimenting.  For the most part with cooking I can guestimate with some things, just from many years of experience, and end up with exactly what I intended.  I love spices and herbs, and anything that gives me variety.  There are certain ingredients though that I always measure, because the ratio matters in the end result. 

That is why I also enjoy baking, with very basic ingredients I can make bread and from there I can take it in so many different directions.  I find that the more I learn about the actual ingredients and how they effect my loaf of bread, either by experience or reading, the better my bread gets.  I treat all recipes as suggestions, to which I add my own touches to meet my families needs. The trick to really good bread is to write down what you do as you do it, until you make a product that you enjoy eating.  Once I have the measurements down on paper, I simply keep the weights of flour, water, yeast, and salt, but I then branch out to add special ingredients.   Spices, herbs, onions, garlic, cheese, fruit, even chocolate or coffee can be added to breads. 

I have my own personalized ratios for baguettes, french loaves, sandwich loaves, sweet breads, and even sugar free sweet breads.  I use the ratios/weights as a guideline, but adjust according to what I am making or how I want the dough to "feel".  And that is yet another experiment, just waiting for you!

I am not patient and I hate to measure, but I have found I get more consistent results when I do weigh the flour and water.  I hate to wait, so I have to find things to do while my bread is working by itself.  Usually I am actively watching while my kitchen aid is kneading the dough, to make sure it's just the right consistency and has the right feel when it's done.  I also cannot help watching to see the oven spring, silly but I get excited every time it works exactly like I want it to. 

I hope you continue to bake, because I truly think it's a great learning experience.  It teaches me patience, and order, but it also allows me to exert my own individuality.

From Drop Box

 

 

Gawker's picture
Gawker

I actually learned to cook out of self defense...my mother could barely boil water without a disaster so SOMEBODY needed to know how ;) I was cooking when I still needed a stool to see the stove top (which begs the question wth is a kid that young doing cooking?!) but hey I never got hurt burned or injured that I recall aside from the normal grease pop here and touched something accidently there that every cook at every age gets from time to time.

At any rate I started with hot cereals like oatmeal and Cream of Wheat and pastas boiling away while a jar of spaghetti sauce warms in a pot and browning hamburger in a skillet, all the simplest foods that kept myself and my siblings and mother (when she could make it for dinner) fed. Well I'm no longer the poor kid with the hippie mother trying to survive on whatever we had at hand but I never lost that passion for taking simple things and turning them into something great...which brings me to everyone here actually...

I'm not particularly interested in cakes and pastries as of right now. I'm here to learn to make great bread. 4 simple ingredients that have been a cornerstone of the human diet since the dawn of civilization; and boy if you don't find that just a little magical then I don't know what to say ;)

rossnroller's picture
rossnroller
I'm here to learn to make great bread. 4 simple ingredients that have been a cornerstone of the human diet since the dawn of civilization; and boy if you don't find that just a little magical then I don't know what to say ;)

We get it, Gawker - you're with kindred spirits! We all have that sense of elemental magic, and that's why we're here, trading experiences in the wonderful wide endlessly fascinating and addictive world of bread. :)

It's a beautiful thing.

Jo_Jo_'s picture
Jo_Jo_

I am wondering if the reason it's so hard to go from being a cook to being a baker has to do with the lack of really good information on baking bread.  You are given recipes for bread, and they contain very little information about weights versus volume measures for example.  Those who grew up with someone who could teach them what the dough should look and feel like, and what the different ingredients could add or subtract from the final product were given an incredible headstart.  My mom never baked, and I didn't know anyone who did either, so I spent years literally banging my head against the wall not understanding why my breads failed or succeeded.  About ten years ago I stumbled on a sourdough baking site on the internet and a group of very experienced bakers, that is when I really started to be able to control my baking results and at least knew why my breads were dry or thick crusted. Now I have found The Fresh Loaf and am learning even more about breads from people who seem to be incredible bakers, certainly they know a LOT more than I do.  I find the language you use to be confusing and many times I go do an internet search to figure out what you mean by a "miche" or a "pain" such and such, plus I have asked for King Arthurs Bread Baking Book and Peter Reinharts "Bread Bakers Apprentice" for christmas.  I look for books that aren't simply recipes, that give me an idea of what to expect from the ingredients and methods they use.  Anyway, just a thought as to why it's so hard to go from cook to baker rather than baker to cook.....  It's rather an interesting topic.

Gawker's picture
Gawker

That's going to be about as perfect an explanation of how I PERSONALLY feel about this transition asI could NEVER come up with on my own. Well ok that combined with "an experienced cook can bake a brick just as well as the next guy" that is...

I already admitted my mother was a lousy cook and my grandmother's chicken 'n dumplins includes canned biscuits (quarters) as the "dumplins". Ok before you start judging they are actually quite tasty...honest! That being said "baking" has never been something I enjoyed because I'm only now finding PEOPLE to help me learn instead of relying on recipes with no experience. Good call!

PS: I have been googling my hindquarters off ever since I found this place...what's a lame? what does gringre mean? I totally know what a pain is but somehow MY definition doesn't make contextual sense here...

Jo_Jo_'s picture
Jo_Jo_

Forgot to tell Gawker, those are really nice loaves of bread that you made!  Really very impressive.....

Gawker's picture
Gawker

You will never know how I feel hearing everyone say such a simple thing as "those are really nice" I expected a terrible disasterous failure my first time out. That being said my family is having a spaghetti lunch on the 24th and because I posted my photos from this experience on my Facebook page I've been assigned garlic bread duty...something magic about bread

Jo_Jo_'s picture
Jo_Jo_

Lol, Charles, I have baked plenty of those bricks through the years and I'm sure I will bake more to come!  Maybe that's how the great wall in china was built?

GSnyde's picture
GSnyde

I've been cooking for almost 40 years and baking for four months.  I'm a good cook from a family of good cooks.  When I started baking bread, I realized that my cooking experience is both a benefit and a handicap.  It's a benefit because I know some food chemistry and have a sense of what flavors work well together and how to make them pop.  It's a handicap because--as you already said--baking takes a certain kind of patience and the baker has less control over the product.  You have to un-learn some habits and expectations.

The way I see it, a large part of baking is learning to optimize the symbiotic relationship between the baker and the other organisms involved in the process--wheat, yeast, bacteria.  You need to listen to and learn from those beasties.  Understand how they operate, what they want, what they can do if you encourage them.  A bite of really good bread should include a silent thank you to all the little collaborators who died in the process.  Amen.

Be patient, Gawker.  It won't take you as long to become a good baker as it did to become a good cook.  You're a natural

Glenn

Gawker's picture
Gawker

Any and all who played along with me in this thread are welcome to join me in my first BLOG ENTRY!!!

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