Preliminary Kerfuffle

Bread baking has the reputation of being difficult. I've been cooking since I was able to see the stove top on my tippytoes. I can fix many exotic dishes using many different ingredients following many different national styles. At one time in the fog of my past I applied for one of the most prestigious food critic posts in the world. Nevertheless, it used to be a matter of pride that I never baked. Who needed it? Bread was the last thing I ever expected to concoct in my kitchen.

More out of boredom than anything else, two years ago I bought a bread making machine. My long-time guard was down and I wandered into neglected culinary territory.

The stuff the machine produced was passable. But I knew there was more to baking bread than pouring flour into a gadget and waiting for it to regurgitate a bread-like substance.


Then one day in my wanderings on the internet I stumbled upon Breadtopia's website. Here was an approachable method of taking bread making out of the machine and into my hands. I accepted the challenge. I read the instructions, viewed the videos and tried the recipe. I was hooked from my very first loaf. My world changed.

For over two years now I have been baking bread and similar goodies using the no knead method described by Breadtopia. Being the kind of guy I am, I am incapable of sitting still and following recipes more than the first time around. I have to change things, do things my own way, lift up the hood and rearrange the parts. As a result I have made a few minor discoveries that improve--I claim modestly--on the method Breadtopia started me on.

Which brings us to this website. This website is devoted to sharing those discoveries. Readers can try them and judge for themselves whether I have brought the art of bread baking one step further or plunged it further into a new dark ages.

I also have secondary goal. I am aware the economy is tough and many people have to pinch every penny. It makes sense to encourage easy home bread baking to anyone in pinched economic circumstances. Bread may not be the most expensive item on the menu, but home bread baking can save a surprising amount of money for any person or family that eats bread regularly.

Having made my missionary statement, let me describe the method to my madness.

As much as I owe an intellectual debt to Breadtopia, Mark Littman, the Sullivan Street Bakery and all the pioneers of no knead bread baking, I find all the recipes I've seen so far a little too fancy for home bread baking week in week out.

It's always a treat to try a new recipe. If the recipe works out well, everyone promises to do it again a second time. Whether or not you do it a second time depends not only on tastiness, but on ease of performance. If it's too complicated, well, maybe it won't get redone so soon.

Add to the equation the fact that we're talking about bread. Most Americans eat bread several times a week--if not every day. Home bread baking recipes have to be easy and straightforward enough to be done once or twice or more times a week if they are to become a regular part of the diet, as opposed to being one more of the long list of great recipes that never actually get repeated. And there has to be some variety. Eating the same thing every day is a drag.

My suggestion is for readers to take a look at Breadtopia's videos on the net--but don't memorize them. Breadtopia is a wonderful teacher. He is very clear and helpful. He is my baseline. I am sure he gets great results.

The problem I have with his method is that it more elaborate than necessary, in my book. I get the results I want with maybe 40% less effort than he demonstrates. I would not be insulted at all if people told me they prefer his methods to mine. But I'll stick to my shortcuts, thank you.

In the entries on this blog I will present a dizzying number of variations. I assume it is better to learn principles than memorize individual recipes. To get you started I present a baseline recipe. Beyond that entry, I describe variations. If you want to follow the baseline recipe week after week after week, be my guest. I assume, however, that you will want some variety. So I include hints about how the baseline recipe can be tweeked. If you change this or that from time to time you will more likely keep your enthusiasm and curiosity pumping. Bread is probably something you eat a lot, so having the keys to many variations on the theme will make your bread baking a skill you will want to practice well into the future.

I also have a sneaky heuristic (that is a fancy word for 'teaching) principle in mind. The heuristic principle is that you will adopt as your own the method the one or ones you discover among all the variations. Most people prefer the things they discover for themselves over the things they are taught and told to follow blindly. It does not hurt my ego at all if you make your bread differently than I make my bread. We can all get along.

I recently met a young lady in the flour aisle as I was shopping in a large supermarket. She asked if I bake. Of course, I said. She then said she never baked because she hates being exact and she was always told that bakers must measure everything exactly and follow recipes scrupulously. My reaction: Bullhockey!!! I do not measure exactly and at times I change things at whim (within a range). I assured the young lady that it's possible to bake a lot of things with as much invention and variation as most home cooks use when cooking other dishes.

The recipes I present in this blog are very forgiving. They tolerate a good degree of variation, both variation of quantity of each ingredient and variation of prep time. I present baseline recipes to get the reader over the first hump. But almost any single part of every recipe I present here can be adjusted -- and the results will be good. If you happen to like the same results each time you bake, pick one set of parameters and follow them each time. If you want change, there really are a lot of things that can change in each recipe. Once you understand the general principles, there are many variations waiting for you to try. Go for it.