Hello and musings on bread and baking

Hello,

My name is Cathryn.  I have been baking bread since I learned to make houska/Vánočka at my mother's elbow around age 10 or 11.  I don't bake bread as often as I would like due to full-time work, graduate school and family commitments, but I am hoping to change that.  A fellow graduate student and friend introduced me home-milling whole grains around 2010 and I have been converting favorite and new baking recipes to the special needs of fresh whole meal.  This includes my mother's houska recipe, a recipe for Lussekatter and my compilation recipe for Weihnachtsstollen.  (It was complied from about 5-7 published recipes and includes my favorite ideas from each.)

I am currently working my thesis for a MA in the Humanities that is a study and comparison of the similarities in kolache, kolachi, Polish versions of the same, Mohnstollen, some Jewish baked items and how ingredients choices and recipes changed over time due to cultural exchanges, emigration to North America, socio-economics and politics.  Yes, that is still a cumbersome description.  ;-)  My thesis advisor and I are still paring it down.  I have just started the writing portion this semester and I hope to have it ready for defense by Fall 2020 or Spring 2021.  In preparation, I have been conducting baking interviews with friends and colleagues.  In December 2018, I met with a classmate with Polish ancestry and made kolaczki, the Polish cookie/pastry version of Czech kolacky.  During late summer/early fall 2019, I participated in bake-a-thons at a local Byzantine Catholic that was preparing for its annual Kolachi bake sale in November.  I am working to develop a kolache recipe that uses whole grain flour and reminds my mother of her Czech aunts' and cousins' baking.  I am hoping to secure research funding to attend some of the Kolache and Kolacky festivals in coming Summer 2020.

Currently, I am still using conventional recipes measurements like one finds on blogs and in community cookbooks for my bread recipes.  I am hoping as I learn and experiment with more professional techniques and terminology to convert my yeast and sourdough recipes to include terms like hydration, autolase/autolyse, etc.

I have lurked in the background of TFL off and on for about 7 years.  Today, I finally opted to join so I could post a comment on someone's drool-worthy GF veggie pizza and basement WFO...  ;-)

Hello again <wave>  I am looking forward to learning and sharing.  :-)