I do not mean to imply that I am the Yeezy of baking.. unless you count foolish self confidence in the face of flagrant failure a trait of mr. Kanye, then yeah… I am the Yeezy of baking. Anyway, I have decided to bake artisanal breads. Using the word artisanal makes me feel like an arse, but I cant come up with a better way… Traditional maybe? Anyway, I am going this, and have gone a bit crazy on amazon to equip myself for the journey, which so far has been a rough one, but I gather that may be the norm for an inexperienced baker (I have been paleo for about 4 years now… and am loosening my rules to allow for some things clearly not paleo, such as home-made whole-grain bread).
As a short anecdote for this process, the weekend after my first and spectacularly failed bread attempt, with a slow, stunted, sad starter, I went to the artisanal bakers at the farmers market looking for tips on reviving my starter. I approached a stall run by a family that I would bet has some very fundamental religious ideas, and surveyed the ingredients on their breads, and saw that they had been using whole grains and spelt and some of the things I am trying to use as well. I struck up a conversation explaining I have been having trouble getting my starter to get going. The young man in the stall incredulously asked me why on earth I was trying to make my own starter (to which I had to mumble something about wanting to do it the most traditional way). He seemed genuinely puzzled that I would want to do something so foolhardy, which should have prepared me for his advice. What was I told would fix my starter right up? Use packets of dry yeast. Thanks… but no thanks. I am still determined to do this the way bread would have been made hundreds of years ago, even if that means a whole lot of failure, because it is what Kanye would do. Ya know… gotta respect the process.
Today marks roughly 2 weeks into my obsession. I have a few stipulations: I am not allowing myself packaged yeast – my yeast will be whatever is around in the air, no white flours, or anything bleached or too refined. The goal is to make nutritious bread that is lofted and airy from my very own sourdough starter, which began as a mix of one-part Kamut and one-part water. So far, it has been very difficult.
The first attempt was disastrous, and I have begun to keep a journal to log what is happening and what I am doing with my work to avoid said disasters in the future. I started an initial starter – which had some quick success, getting very bubbly. However, I do not think I let it mature enough before I decided to jump in and bake some bread bread, so I very hastily threw it in with more flour, trying to follow a recipe from Tartine’s Book no. 3… without actually following the recipe. This sort of lawless interpretation of a recipe, it turns out, is NOT the best way to begin a foray into baking breads. Bread is, in a base essence, science. Variables matter (temperature, moisture etc.) and play a big role, and measuring? Yeah… that is important to bread making, so the person in me who thinks recipes should be shunned for intuition is having to buckle down and read a recipe or two and use my kitchen scale before I get crazy with anything.
The first attempt quickly turned into lifeless mush, I used the method for mixing from Tartine‘s master and triiiiieeeedddd very hard to hope bread into existence but not having the initial measurements right, and a very unstable temperature situation inevitably proved disastrous… at one point I rashly mixed in more starter because the sad porridge in my bowl was not even considering rising for me. Dan, the bf, encouraged me to keep at it until by day 4 or 5 of essentially developing a floured bog I finally called a spade a spade and dumped my stinky mush to start fresh. Already bread making has been a strong lesson in patience, which frankly, is a quality I am known to lack, but am cultivating in this process.
I am now about a week into reviving my starter… and it has gone slowly. I figured out a key trick, to store the starter in my gas range over night where the pilot light keeps the temperature pretty steady, and then I move it into the sunroom once the sun is up where the temperature hovers at a much nicer. I was initially feeding only once a day, but have noticed twice a day feedings seem to accelerate the process. I also snuck in a small amount (roughly the size of a pea) of maple sugar to give it some extra oomph yesterday that really made a difference in the life of the starter, it looked impressively bubbly and airy upon inspection this morning.
I feel, today, with my starter happily bubbling, reinvigorated as well. Two weeks in and already bread making is making me a happier person, and the little bubbly starter has become some sort of pet (check the link, because the New York Times apparently knows about my life better than I do) whose life status I am becoming increasingly obsessed with. My hope is that by this weekend I may be ready for bread round two! Crossing my fingers… I will be trying to keep this updated on my riveting bread journey, don’t worry.
Because I want to 