July 9, 2012 - 2:54pm
Hello!
Hello, my name is Luis. I love cooking but I've always been intimidated by bread baking and pastry. I finally got up the nerve to sign up for a sourdough starter class and found the process of making bread from a naturally fermented starter a lot less difficult than I imagined. I'm still experimenting with my bread but I'm excited to start learning more baking techniques. Looking forward to reading through this forum for ideas and information.
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SD bread baking like mos\t things is easy enough to learn and hard to mater :-) Have fun while baking on.
First and foremost, a very hearty welcome to you.
Second, the unsolicited advice: I've found The Fresh Loaf very useful over the years. A day rarely passes without my scanning it. I admire your courage in leaping past the fear by taking a course. Bread baking takes attention to detail but you definitely don't have to be a rocket scientist to bake quite acceptable loaves. And, even when you see problems in your loaves, others will love them. My advice is this: use a textbook of bread baking as your primary source of information, not The Fresh Loaf website. A textbook such as DiMuzio's Bread Baking will guide you along your way from the ground up, giving you the fundamentals in an organized fashion. Cook books simply are not organized that way; they teach in a sort of helter skelter fashion. The DiMuzio text includes graded exercises along the way which are quite fun once you get into them. It's not terribly expensive new and even less so if found used and in good condition.
Do practice, practice, and practice some more. And while doing so tell us about your successes and failures. We'll help.
Watch all the videos from the video menu above. Then watch them again when they seem appropriate.
Have fun!