For the longest time I have wanted to bake bread. Baking is extremely hard for me because I don't have the discipline to stick with a recipe. Measuring portions, keeping precise track of time and temperature are skills I simply do not have. My cooking is extremely improvisational and there is no way to know what the end product will end up being - I rarely have a plan and when I do it is subject to change every step of the way. Before J leaves to college, I wanted her to know that baking bread is a magical experience and so I decided to make a serious effort. My basic bread recipe is deceptively simple. Two cups of flour, one cup of water, salt and yeast. Mixed and let to rise about twelve hours. Then make a ball and bake at 450 F in a pre-heated dutch oven. Lid on for thirty minutes and lid off for fifteen minutes.
As simple as that is, there are many ways to get it wrong. The flour may be too old, the yeast not active enough, rise time too little or too long, the oven may report the temperature too early or too late. So each time I bake I learn something about what I did wrong. So I fix that only to find I missed something else. For me, personally, this is an exercise in learning to be patient, deliberate and precise. I know this will not become easy for me until I have baked for many months in a row. There will be many failures along the way. If I ever hope to bake my basic bread effortlessly, I have to keep trying despite the failures. And at some point I will get to that desideratum of baking like it was the most natural thing for me to do. I am hoping J also learns something from observing this process in the next several months until I finally get it right.
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