The other half of this blog is supposed to be dedicated to baking and as I haven’t actually posted something I thought I best get on it! 
Other than my yoga aspirations, I also have dreams of opening a bakery/coffee shop someday. Right now I actually have the ability to go work in a bakery for a couple of months so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to see if I even actually like baking in a more professional setting. So while I search for that job, I thought I would brush up on my skills. Specificially, I have never made much bread so I am hoping to get a wee better at it.
Sourdough bread has always been the holy grail of bread making to me. When I was growing up I baked your basic white and wheat bread, but sourdough bread required a starter and therefore was way beyond my capabilities. But you see the thing is, I love sourdough bread – the tangy softness of the inside combined with the chewy crusty outside. It is so lovely with just a bit of butter or jam on it.
However, recently I decided that I was just going to do it – it can’t actually be that hard right? I found a simple looking recipe in my cookbook and started reading it over. Silly me – it seemed a starter simply required some flour, yeast, warm water and about two days. This is what I had been afraid of all this time? I was still a bit suspicious, surely there must be something else required. I reread the recipe and nope that was it. So I mixed it all up and put it in a warm sunny place and waited the required two days.
On the second day, I woke up excited about making the bread. I put all the rest of the ingredients into the cuisinart and mixed them up. Then I slowly poured the starter into the mixture. The dough firmed up nicely. I pulled it out of the cuisinart and started kneading it with my hands. The dough was unusually soft beneath my fingers. I let it rise and then it was time for the moment of truth – baking it. Would it turn out good or not? I heated up the oven, cooked it for the prescribed time and pulled it out. It looked just like I imagined that sourdough bread should look. Nice and crusty on the outside with the insides peeking through the slashes on the top. I was running out the door so I let it cool overnight. The next morning I cut into it. It looked nice and soft inside. Time to spread a bit of butter on it and see if it tasted as good as it looked. It did – it was a little salty, but other than that it was just as I imagined it would be.
Next: Pumpernickel – requested by my husband.
