Bread Obession
I got obsessed with bread. Not just any kind of bread, but artisan bread. Natural yeast, sourdough, whole wheat 7-grain boules, to be exact. I am a bread lover, to be sure, but somehow my love for bread turned into a quest for a difficult but supremely delicious bread, in short, my bread obsession to make the perfect loaf. So what you see below is the product I finally managed to make after several weeks of trying to get a good fungal/bacterial culture going, I mean, bakers yeast/lactobacillus, also known as sourdough starter. That was a challenge in itself, considering that Thailand is bacterial heaven and the temperatures are not ideal for the growth of yeast cells. I am too ashamed to tell you how many hours I have spent on the superb website "The Fresh Loaf" which you can get to yourself if you click on my title above. I learned from chemists, who also like to make bread, more than I ever imagined I could or wanted to know about growing microbes. Certain special microbes.
Once my special microbe colony was healthy I had to learn how to make the bread with it. I wasn't satisfied with simply making a loaf. I had seen the gorgeous boule loaves of bread on TFL website, and I could no longer be sated on a simple loaf. I became inflamed with bread-lust. This is my confession, I gave monosyllabic replies to my son when he showed me his Lego creations. I was late to bed, I was dreaming of bread at night. (I am not kidding.) Boules, beautiful boules, how does one acheive them? My attempts were flat pancakes, dense crumb structure, shameful examples of bread. I drooled over the masterpieces I saw on TFL. So I lurked and read for hours, tried new techniques, forgot the salt sometimes, and finally made something that resembled THE BOULE. Then, things got better. I got a peel, the thing you use to put bread in the oven so you don't have to use your hands and deflate the bubbles. I found a Thai improvision for La Cloche, a magnificent bread making devise that gives you ovenspring (additional rise in the oven.) I found special high protein flours, I made other improvisions for a couche...and lo...
(Can you hear the music?) My first gorgeous bread. It takes about 36 hours from start to finish. Glorious!
Once my special microbe colony was healthy I had to learn how to make the bread with it. I wasn't satisfied with simply making a loaf. I had seen the gorgeous boule loaves of bread on TFL website, and I could no longer be sated on a simple loaf. I became inflamed with bread-lust. This is my confession, I gave monosyllabic replies to my son when he showed me his Lego creations. I was late to bed, I was dreaming of bread at night. (I am not kidding.) Boules, beautiful boules, how does one acheive them? My attempts were flat pancakes, dense crumb structure, shameful examples of bread. I drooled over the masterpieces I saw on TFL. So I lurked and read for hours, tried new techniques, forgot the salt sometimes, and finally made something that resembled THE BOULE. Then, things got better. I got a peel, the thing you use to put bread in the oven so you don't have to use your hands and deflate the bubbles. I found a Thai improvision for La Cloche, a magnificent bread making devise that gives you ovenspring (additional rise in the oven.) I found special high protein flours, I made other improvisions for a couche...and lo...
(Can you hear the music?) My first gorgeous bread. It takes about 36 hours from start to finish. Glorious!
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