My husband and I were visiting my sister at her home in New
York last winter. While I had known for some time that she had turned into an
incredible bread baker, my husband was experiencing the fruit of her labors for
the first time. While he was was blissfully savoring his fourth or fifth piece
of just-out-of-the-oven
I have to admit, I contemplated throwing the remainder of
the loaf at his head while yelling, “Why don’t YOU bake like my sister?!” I
resisted, but explained snarkily that working full time, volunteering several
hours a week, and keeping house for His Royal Highness did not leave endless
hours to devote to mixing, kneading, and rising.
When I mentioned this to my sister, she told me that baking
bread was “easy” and “took no time at all.” I later learned that she was at
least exaggerating, if not outright lying on both counts, but for the moment, I
began thinking that I could give this home baker thing a shot and said as much.
Upon arriving home from our stay with my sister, I mostly
forgot about the bread and our conversation until a big box arrived from
Amazon. I opened it to find a banneton (yes, I had to look up what that was
for), a book, assorted bread baking tools, and a note that read, “So you can
bake like me. Or at least try. Love, Jessi.”
This got my competitive juices flowing, and I dove into the
book with enthusiasm. “The Bread Bible” by Rose Levy Beranbaum is all anyone
could ever want from a cookbook and more. It turns out, there are as many ways
to make bread as there are stars in the sky, and this book seeks to familiarize
readers with many of them. Within the first few pages, I learned that my
kitchen was woefully lacking ingredients and equipment. Once this was rectified
by a good trip to the grocery store and another to Sur La table, I got to work.
I found that kneading, even with my trusty Kitchenaid mixer,
was a little too daunting. So I went searching for recipes with no kneading
involved. Jim Lehey’s “My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No- Knead Method”
cookbook provided the perfect solution. According to this acclaimed baker, you
mix flour, a small amount of yeast, salt, and water in a bowl and just leave it
for 18 hours. Come back almost a day
later, toss the thing is a really hot cast iron pot and bake- voila,
bread!
I was skeptical at first. My loaf may have missed its mark
as I was tipping it into the hot dutch oven that served as its cooking vessel.
Despite having been coerced into place with several wooden spoons after having
landed on a hot oven rack (pro-tip: take your cast iron pot all the way out of
the oven before trying to tip your unbaked loaf into it), it actually looked
ok, if a bit...rustic.
I cut through that crunchy crust and into the chewy crumb,
slathered it with butter, and my husband and I took our first bites. As he said
was, “This is the best bread I have ever eaten.” That’s all it took to send me
into a baking frenzy.
I swiftly conquered my fear of kneading (although I still go
back to Jim Lahey’s Basic No-Knead white bread and No Knead Italian Strecca
recipes regularly) and moved on to making challah, Parker House rolls, bagels,
ciabatta, pretzels, pizza dough, popovers, and almost every kind of artisan
loaf you can think of. My counters are lined with flour containers and my
cookbook shelf is at capacity.
Last spring, I scoured the Friends of the Library book sale
for any bread baking book I could get my hands on. It turns out, the 1960’s
edition of the “New York Times Cookbook” has a host of great recipes- just
don’t expect details. For example, the Cuban bread that I forced my coworkers
to test last week, instructed me to bake in a “hot” oven until “done”. Even
without a specified baking time or temperature, it turned out fine and I got a
serious confidence boost knowing that my knowlege of bread baking allowed me to
correctly interpret these vague instructions.
That said, I have still not ventured into the strange and
perilous land of sourdough and not everything I have made has been a hit. Come
to find out, peanut butter bagels are only amazing if you have four legs, a
wagging tail, and a wet nose. Also, the time I excitedly told my husband, “I
will make the bread of your people!”, referring to his Swedish ancestry, I
probably should have noted that Swedish Limpa bread contains anise and fennel.
We both hate anise and fennel, and as such, we hate Swedish Limpa bread.
For the most part, we have not bought bread at a store in
months (although I simply refuse to make hot dog rolls from scratch) and I love
trying out new recipes from books old and new. Most of all, I love sharing
recipes with my sister. While she is still the CEO of Sourdough, I am fairly
certain that I can now bake like not only my sister, but like Rose Levvy
Beranbaum, Jim Lahey, Mark Bittman, and any number of great bakers, at least in
a small way.
