learning

Greetings fellow bread bakers and bread lovers,

I have been thinking all morning about what led me to bake bread, and I think it might be fun to share some stories and experiences about how we all came to this really rewarding activity.  I think we all come to breads in a very personal and meaningful way, and I'd like to hear from you what it was like. 

Here's the link to my blog where this post is hosted.  Hope you don't mind my attempts at MS Paint illustration!  Be kind--all I have is a touchpad!

http://sourdoughrye.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-i-started-baking-bread.html

Hello all,

Most of you will not recognize my username, since I last posted here in March of 2008.  But I've been reading TFL daily for years now, since I first searched online for a good pretzel recipe, and found this one.  The combination of TFL, BBA, and Glezer's Artisan Baking Across America got me to the point where I could bake bread that I was proud of.

This evening, I pulled two loaves of Thom Leonard's Country French bread out of the oven, and they looked like this (shouldn't I have brushed off that little speck of flour on the near loaf?):

But when I first posted about this bread, I was disappointed (see blog entry here).  I goobered up some of the process, and thought the crumb was not what it should be, etc.  Back then, I sweated every line of instruction, every minute that some step of the process went too long, and was almost afraid to handle the dough for shaping.  Tonight, I called in a take-out order from a local pizza joint, loaded the bread in the oven, went to pick up dinner, got back home with 45 seconds to spare till I had to rotate the loaves.  Hey, just another day in the kitchen!

After all these years, and many dozens of loaves of all kinds of breads, it has become relatively easy to produce really nice stuff.  But as soon as I typed that, I remembered that a few weeks ago, I attempted the Polish Cottage Rye from Leader's Local Breads.  It had a cavern big enough for half the bakers on TFL, and a gummy crumb.  Yecch.  But usually, I'm quite happy with my results.

I just wanted to post this to encourage all you newbies to keep at it.  Find a bread you're interested in, and make it many times till you'd be glad to give it as a gift.  There's so much common sense and wisdom on this site, you can find any information you need.  And really, an investment of time will definitely yield a satisfying reward!

Happy Baking,

Sue

Earlier this month I participated in Paney Camp 2007, a bread making learning session with participants from the Garden Web Cooking Forum. I was the teacher and my "students" were from all over: California, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina. Our base camp was a delightful Bed & Breakfast in Oak Ridge, NC which is near Greensboro and very close to the airport. My quilting friend, Marilyn, and her husband Don own the B&B and she has a large kitchen, just right for lots of people making lots of bread.

We began by making a sponge after our kick-off dinner (NC BBQ) followed by Shaker Daily Loaf (a white bread) and Herbed Country French Loaves (using the sponge) the next morning. We continued our baking by making Struan Bread and Classic 100% Whole Wheat Bread. Soft Butter Knot Rolls and Orange Sweet Rolls followed the grain breads. The seven students worked in pairs, taking turns mixing and kneading. I tried my best to help some of them improve their kneading skills - LOL! One class member was a standout at kneading, having made bread regularly years ago. Her breads had a vastly different feel to them which I attributed to her kneading skills.

This group of experienced cooks did a champion job of cleaning up the kitchen every day! And I didn't even have to ask them to clean up or ask that they be quiet while I was talking! Going on field trips was a bit like "herding cats" for me though - LOL!

We went to the Old Mill of Guilford after a lunch break the first baking day. I purchased a few things for the class recipes at that time, but I was very pleased to have organized the class so well that we did not once have to run down the street to the grocery store the entire time - Wednesday evening to Sunday morning.

Thursday night we went to L'Italiano, a very good local Italian restaurant in High Point. Friday we alloted to shopping at the Vietri outlet in Hillsborough, A Southern Season in Chapel Hill (where we had a wonderful lunch at their Weathervane Cafe) and Replacements, Ltd. on I-40/85 near Greensboro. Dinner Friday night was at Blue Water Grille in High Point where we had delicious seafood, fish, and pork.

Saturday began with a morning visit to the NC Farmer's Market nearby. We found lots of vegetables and goat cheese for our pizza lesson that day. We continued class with Focaccia and pizza dough from the Basic Pizza Primer found here at The Fresh Loaf. I asked for questions Saturday afternoon and an hour later we finished up with the Q&A session! We concluded Paney Camp with homemade pizza on Saturday evening.

Our B&B hosts provided a delicous Italian Breakfast Strata (made with our breads) for our brunch on Sunday morning. Two members left for their 11:00 am flight and the other campers went to Old Salem and SECCA in Winston Salem, just a few miles west of the B&B location. All the campers had a chance to pack up bread we had made to take home if they had room. After our fond good-byes, I packed up and came home where I promptly crashed and didn't move for several hours - LOL!

All in all, I think the breadmaking camp and classes went very well. We couldn't do anything about the 100 degree temp heat wave that the whole Southeast and other parts of the nation was experiencing in early August. And...it's supposed to get up to 100 again today. Even though the B&B had A/C, it was about 85 in the kitchen with the ovens going all day. We did change our plans to go shopping after my friend at the Goat Lady Dairy called and said it was miserably hot there and they had no A/C in their cheese tasting room. Our planned trip to the potteries around Seagrove was also canceled due to the heat. But as the camp teacher/tour guide, I just went with the flow of what the campers wanted to do and everything was fine. I did make sure to call ahead and cancel our visits to the Dairy and the pottery where I had scheduled a demonstration.

Last year's camp was Canning Camp in Michigan, where the campers learned to can and make jams, salsa, etc. Next year may be Pastry Camp, but the location has not been set yet. In two years....maybe cooking classes in Italy??? I am soooo getting ready for that one!

Teresa, the "Doughmaster" (the name the campers gave me)