Friday – Part 3 – Time

I have joined a cult – in three parts – flour, warm water, and time.

Time

I know! I know! You must be on the edge of your seat! I need to first start with an appreciation for all of those that are actually raising real human children, teaching online so parents can homeschool, and all essential employees. Loren has literally been working 16 hour days to teach and support other faculty, counselors, librarians, and coaches in the union, and our closest friend is deemed an essential employee on campus due to food and housing insecurities with the student population still on campus. I don’t want to make light of these realities while pontificating and hopefully making you laugh a little about the cult of bread baking.

The first loaf was dense, bland, and boring. If beige had a physical form it would be my first loaf of bread. It is at this point that I realized maybe remembered, I don’t really like bread. Loren and friends loved it. One friend, Jill, drove after 9 pm, to taste a warm fresh slice with butter and looked like a kid eating it from six feet away. Boring – but a source of fun. Ok.

I turned to FB and announced the birth of my starter in a virtual birthday party and then a series of pictures that announced the development of bland boring bread. My FB Messenger group, aka Bread Baking Badasses, has one rule – Bread Baking Badasses don’t apologize. I didn’t and don’t for the first loaf – I mean it was bread.Here is where the cult membership really comes into play – full force – Time.

Within 6 maybe 8 hours of posting the bland loaf pictures I was standing in a parking lot (wearing a mask) meeting a woman in a blue Elantra (also wearing a mask) that knows a friend that used to live in this area now living in Austin (randomly who came out to a stand-up show I did after a 15-year hiatus) to hand me

1) a Red Wine Vinegar starter,

2) a sourdough starter, and

3) a DVD documentary about local food growers.

(I haven’t watched the DVD, but I told you this was a cult… this is the indoctrination process). To be fair, I showed up with empty jars and I gave her 4 cinnamon rolls that I made from one of those tubes that pop open… I know fancy right.

Our common friend’s parting words after the hook up was, “have fun with it.”

So I did – it was Time.

The cult saved me time while also encouraging me to use the time that I had. One book I read recommended that a new cult member, I mean bread baker just feed their start for the first month so that one’s life rhythm begins to include their start feedings. Then one is to spend the second month slowly learning how to cook with the start discards so that by the third month, the new bread baker is ready to embark on the art of cult membership, I mean break baking.

Yeah, I didn’t do any of that. I read the book after I made 3 loaves, and the two last loves were from the same batch that I put into the bread maker I forgot I bought years ago and have never touched prior to reading that book or manual as well.

I did, however, have fun! I listened to the starter and I communicated with the dough, guessed a lot, and ended up with a honey walnut loaf – or two.

Full disclosure – I am still wrestling with the time, space, temperature continuum required to use my oven – the top one is the stove – this is my new Lefty Loosey Righty Tighty… stove oven stove… so I had very undercooked, thick loaves, that also set off the smoke detectors, but it was bread.

The funniest part is the was. At this writing, all bread has been eaten.Also – at this point, I can share what I have learned from my cult initiation period of time.

1. Printing recipes from the same source produces the problem of them looking the same and may lead to bread bakers accidentally switching recipes mid-stream without realizing it. Fun Times!
2. When you run out of flour – it is better to go get more flour – but looking around your kitchen for other dry things is more fun – until you find Psyllium Husks, dump the whole bag in, and then remember you purchased that for “digestive assistance.” (Spoiler alert – no major problems were reported.)
3. Every recipe, the bread maker, cult members, say the same thing but it is in fine print or such an obvious statement that a newbie like me missed it. For the kids in the back, and the front… DOUGH MUST REST like overnight or all day… yeah so that means when you let it rise the first time, punch it down, and then rise a second time, that isn’t oven ready.
4. It is also true, evidently that if you put said unrested wide awake dough in an oven 425°-525° (insert cult judgment here) that seems to be maybe 50 degrees off for any length of time between 13-20 minutes (insert cult judgment here) you end up with a raw-ish center edible doorstop, or what I call bread.
5. Lastly, all of this has been fun during a very unpredictable, yes unprecedented time.

Bake on friends.