Crystal Madrilejos

Bread is the staff of life. You can filter that through a religious lens if you want, but if you don’t it’s just as true. Virtually every civilization dating back to when the Fertile Crescent was still fertile had some form of flour, water and leavening agent that they mixed together. It’s the food of foods. It’s so simple yet so complex. It’s an art form and while I’m not quite at this point, there are a lot of people out there who can get pretty metaphysical about it.

Crystal is always telling me to post about my bread baking but for one reason or another I never have, until now. It’s exciting, I know.

Many years back I had an epiphany that I could actually make this stuff so I bought yeast for the first time and I’ve been at it ever since. My failures far outnumber my successes but that makes it all the more intriguing. I’m on a mission to make bakery-quality breads in a home oven. It’s quite amazing how much there is to learn, both through reading and good old fashioned trying.

Picture below is my first attempt at Pain à l’Ancienne. I need to work on shaping this kind of dough but overall it turned out really good. (And, as Crys will tell you, I almost never say things turn out “really good.” There’s always room for improvement.)

I’m not just saying this as a cute way to wrap things up but I seriously have some dough proofing that I need to start shaping so I’ll stop here. I’ll continue to share what I’ve learned. I could go on for hours. I love bread.

-a.