Baking bread

Back when I only cooked from packets and jars and didn't know my shallots from my spring onions, I never realised that making bread was anything special.

My sister, who cooks all kinds of incredible things, mentioned once in passing that she could never get her bread to turn out right. It gave me pause because I knew she made some extraordinary dishes. But not bread? Something so simple, such a pantry staple, how could it be difficult? 

Once I did learn to cook and to make things from scratch, I also learned that the fewer the ingredients, the more important the method. Bechamel sauce, chocolate mousse, jam. Bread. 

I can make a creamy bechamel with my eyes closed, and after years of experimenting, I can somewhat reliably turn out a decent crusty bread. 

I still cannot master my mum's chocolate mousse recipe, however. It has like, three ingredients. Mum can't understand why none of us can get it right, and we can't find that magic touch to alchemise those three disparate ingredients into the lightest airiest chocolaty-est confection.

But, back to the bread.

It must be about ten years, on and off, that I've been baking bread. Mostly being disappointed with the results, and overwhelmed with the science and the variables when trying to understand why my loaves were flat, or dense, or airless.

I've tried so many bread recipes, all promising a beautiful loaf. I've dabbled in sourdough. I've tried dozens of bread mixes. I've used a breadmaker, a loaf pan, and now, my favourite method, a dutch oven.

Like many people, covid gave me a reason to address bread baking again. For some reason, during the first lockdown in March 2020, I turned out beautiful puffy loaves one after the other. Finally! I had it! Then we came out of lockdown, and with the same recipe I was now getting flat hard frisbees. Some so sloppy I tipped them in the bin rather than waste time baking something so obviously wrong. 

I still carried on baking, found another recipe, and baked it again and again. I've made this bread over a hundred times I'm sure.

As so often happens with these things, I didn't consciously realise what was happening until I recently mentioned to a friend in passing about "when I bake bread" and she said, gosh do you make bread?? And I realised that I do. And I don't even really think about it anymore. I know my recipe off by heart.

And now I've realised that the trick is to choose a recipe that's not too arduous for you, and make it over and over so that you know know it back to front. You can look at your dough and you instantly know what it needs. 

It gives me inordinate joy that my kids, the fussiest eaters on the planet, who love packet food above all else, adore my homemade bread. "Crusty bread! Crusty bread!" they squeal excitedly to each other.

Here is the bread recipe I use: 

https://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/easy-crusty-french-bread/

One thing I love about this method is how much additional detail and information is provided. This, I am sure, helped me hugely to perfect my loaves.

Now if I could just conquer that chocolate mousse.