Greetings all,

I am a cook (French-trained chef via an apprenticeship) and although I currently work in the banquet department of a hotel in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I shall soon be relocating to Texas to accept a line-cook job in a fine-dining restaurant.  I am not a baker (although I am fairly good at it) but I do enjoy baking at home for myself, my friends, and my family.  I joined this site in hopes of learning more about baking (breads and otherwise) and hopefully improve in an area that I think I need to work on.  I look forward to talking with you all here and learning from you.

Slaínte,

Paul

Good morning, all! I am so excited to find this website. I currently make so-so bread, and it's fine, but I want to make great bread, so I'm hoping to learn a lot from all of you. I make whole-grain bread, so I think, per the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, that it is quite different than regular white bread dough, and takes some slightly different techniques. Grew up with a grandmother whose house ALWAYS smelled of that yummy, yeasty bread smell.

Blessings!

Voni

Greetings from Finland!

After years of reading your posts (and drooling over your tasty and beautiful loaves) for inspiration, I thought I'd start my own blog here too. During the days I'm a stay-at-home dad exploring life with my two boys (ages 4.6 and 2 :)). The rest of my time, mostly when my family is asleep, I try to split between baking, writing and some other creative experiments. And browsing The Fresh Loaf.

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In the past summer, I managed to spoil my starter by not refreshing it during the summer vacation as we were traveling around Finland. Ever since, I have been making breads with yeast, procrastinating with the idea of training a new starter. The Ale and Yeast Poolish recipe from Richard Bertinet's Crust has become my current favorite bread.

Today, once again, I made a batch: I usually follow the recipe as printed, except that for baking, I use a cast-iron frying pan covered with a clay pot for the first twenty minutes -- my cheap version of a dutch oven. To fit the breads in the pan, I divide the dough in four pieces instead of the two instructed in the book, and shape the dough into boules instead of batards.

Here's how it looked this time:

Just want to say hi, when i first came to this forum i did a lot of searching for "bread smell" and never found an answer that lead me anywhere. I had made some large number of loaves that looked ok but never had the 'bread' smell i was searching for. People asking similar questions in the forums got replies that had to do with yeast or ingredients, but this wasnt what i wanted. The closest comparison i can think of is if you have ever smelled roasting coffee or been close to a roastery. It is not brewing coffee but roasting coffee. It is an intense smell that drives coffee lovers crazy. Bread also has a comparable smell, and the smell is not "baking bread" but, as i have found "roasting flour" if you heat your oven to 500* and simply throw a small amount of flour in there, in short order you will get a wonderful "bread smell" that fills your whole house. The same smell cant be achieved from lower temperatures, and likely even high temps than this will produce better smell but i wouldnt know as i am limited by my consumer gas oven. Some people might complain that it smells like it is burning, but if you bake your bread in an oven full of this smell, and after it cools and you bag it, the smell will sink into the bread and smell even better a few hours later. I found this smell by accident after searching many many times unsuccessfuly for "bread smell" or variations of it online. Then when i tried out a sandstone paving stone which i got from Home Depot, i accientally slid in a bit of extra flour, and i finally found this smell. Im sure for some people, this smell is obvious but if you follow most random bread recipes you will never quite achieve the kind of smell i was looking for. Rather it can be done by throwing in a bit of extra flour next to the bread on the stone. It is for me the definitive "bread" smell and makes me want to smash the bread into my face and inhale deeply. Im not at least one person on this forum will know what im talking about.

Anyway just wanted to say hey to everyone and share a piece of my bread journey.

Hello Fellow Bakers,

I am an avid home baker and cook and have lurked on this forum for too long.  I have now joined!  In the bread baking realm I have worked through a number of style's and cookbooks including Lahey's (No Knead), Robertson's (Tartine), Hertzberg's (Artisan), and Tassajara's.  Beard on Bread was one of my first cookbooks in the early 8o's and I worked through a lot of that book before "bread was cool.".  I keep a couple starters going at any given time and am committed to have great smell wafting through my house every weekend.

I've learned a lot from you all thus far and look forward to learning more!

Jeff

Hello from the northern  interior of B.C., Canada.  Have been lurking on this forum for a long time and have learned a great deal.  There is a wealth of knowledge and experience, shared with a great deal of kindness and generosity of spirit.  Thank you all.  

As for myself, have been baking since I was 10, for more decades than I care to admit.  Have only been baking with sourdough for a couple of years, though, and enjoy it thoroughly.

Greetings

I have been reading the topics of this site for a while now and have decided to join in the fun. I've been baking bread as a novice for about a year. I was recently requested to be part of a farmers market to sell my bread. It has worked out well. Each week my sales and inventory have increased, which is a good thing except it is getting a little over whelming. I need to work on my time management skills (they aren't very good at this point). I really love and enjoy this site.

Tamara

Hello,

I just created a new account here and wanted to greet everyone. I hope to use this website much more than my last account and I plan to post more recipes. I have a few that I have recently created that have given me great results. I don't have photos yet. But look for them. Anyways, hello to everyone and I look forward to discussing all things bread.

Cheers!

Hi, all.

I'm very excited about just having joined this forum. I was born and raised in Germany and learned the craft of a Baker as a teenager there. After 4 years of school and apprenticeship, I am proud to call myself a "Journeyman". Married a gal from Iowa and moved to Rochester, MN in 1995. Worked for a year at a local bakery until I realized that the night hours of a baker simply don't agree with a newly wedded wife who is a nurse. Different job for me then. After quite a few years later, we built a house in Zumbrota, just 30 minutes North of Rochester. After moving in, we found out we (and by "we", I mean my wife) found out we'd have a baby. After the first year, I decided to quit my job and stay home full time with the little guy. That allowed me to delve into Baking a little more again. I had been using my Zojirushi for our everyday bread, but then we decided I should get more serious: I'll be taking an Oven Building Class at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN in May. See http://www.northhouse.org/courses/courses/course.cfm/cid/328 for details. I'm planning to build next Spring and then hopefully be able to bake and sell at local Farmers Markets - mostly for fun and bragging rights; I realize this isn't going to be a full-time job (and I don't want it to be).

Looking forward to learn from and share with all of you!

Stephan