#bidsbakesbread

Inspired by the success of growing my sourdough starter, in place of my weekly 40% whole wheat loaf of bread I opted to make a levain bread following this Pain de Campagne recipe from Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast.  Stressed out by the idea of wasting even the slightest bit of the culture I had carefully grown, I also decided to attempt a levain pizza dough.    

This entire process started at 5am when I fed my starter before I headed off for my last 6am shift ever at Anthro (that’s right, I FINALLY GOT A FULL-TIME JOB), which also resulted in me being 10 minutes late, but sometimes you need to make sacrifices for bread.  After work and teaching yoga, I got to work autolysing and mixing my doughs.  

As I only have one large plastic tub for baking, I had to get creative and repurposed a random assortment of containers to house all of my doughs.  Once the doughs were mixed and left to rise the process was relatively similar to other loaves of bread I’ve baked.  The dough is folded multiple times, allowed to rise, then eventually shaped and placed in the fridge to proof overnight.  

One of the most noticeable differences was the smell.  Rather than being slightly sweet and nutty, the dough smelled buttery and slightly like feet.  The dough was light and spongy in texture, with more bounce and stretch (due to the higher hydration and all purpose flour) than I’m used to.    

After shaping the dough and proofing it overnight in the fridge, I woke up Friday morning to this beautiful loaf ready to be baked.  

I baked it for my normal 50 minutes which resulted in a crust darker than I expected, although still delicious and caramely (is that even a word? spell check says no, I say yes). 

The inside crumb is a soft white with a light, spongy texture, peppered with small holes of varying sizes.  And the taste...holy shit this bread is good.  Slightly salty with something I can only describe as a light sharpness.  I suspect this would make a bomb-ass grilled cheese or breakfast sandwich.  

Tuesday is traditionally my least favorite day of the week, but some Tuesdays, like today, bring good news and are worth celebrating.  The best way to celebrate mid-week (or any day really)?  Cookies.  Or in this case you could say brookies.  

This recipe from Smitten Kitchen is quick enough to squeeze into a week night after dinner and before going to the dentist (as I had to do tonight to get my last two cavities filled, hooray!).  Mix the dough, chill for a little bit, then you’re good to go.  

Do they taste like little velvety chocolate puffs of heaven? Yes. Are they worth the side eye from your dentist if she found out you were eating them? Absolutely.

This week has taken it out of me.  Thankfully, there’s freshly baked bread to help me reset.

While the top of my calendar now says “September”, the weather here in DC has made it VERY clear summer will be sticking around for a few more weeks (at least another month if we’re being honest, thanks climate change :| )  I initially planned to spend my first three day weekend of my full-time job life at home in the mountains with my parents, but after thinking about spending 3 hours in the car, both ways, with a very opinionated corgi as my co-pilot, I opted to stay at home.  Trading the long car ride for sleeping in, yoga, and plenty of baking time proved to be a great decision.  

Knowing there was no need to be up bright and early for work on Monday, my roommate and I set aside Sunday for baking, pizza, and wine.  After discovering a bakery that makes homemade Oreos on Instagram a while ago, finding the perfect recipe for an elevated, homemade Oreo has long been on my baking to-do list.  Thanks to Bon Appetit’s YouTube channel, I hard work of creating a recipe was taken care of.  Baking and assembling the cookies and filling was surprisingly easy.  The cookies are essentially a chocolate shortbread with a rich, complex chocolate flavor with a hint of salt, perfect to offset the sweetness of the filling.  If you have a good sous chef and a few hours to spare I definitely recommend giving them a try.

To continue our food marathon, we set our sights on pizza.  I baked bread earlier in the weekend and set aside some of the leftover starter for pizza dough.  I swear, once you’ve had dough made from a sourdough starter you’ll never want another type of crust again.  It’s pillowy, sweet, slightly tangy...basically everything you want a pizza to be.  Using 00 flour, I mixed the dough Saturday night, shaped it Sunday morning, and stuck it in the fridge to proof before setting out for yoga.  The result was two beautiful pizzas, one with potato, rosemary, and burrata (my new obsession), and one with pesto, mozzarella, and prosciutto (a classic).  Both were excellent with rosé. 

I’d like to nominate this week for Worst Week of 2018. After getting a flat tire and my family having to put our lovable dog Brighty to sleep, I’m left feeling like all of these baby ducks.  My feathers have been ruffled and my legs have been swept right out from under me.  

In the midst of all of this and adjusting to typical 9-5 work week finding the time to bake has been very difficult, which has left me in a very sad, carb-less state.

Finally, between yoga and spontaneously bursting into tears on Saturday I found a way to start some bread, and woke up a little bit earlier to bake Sunday morning.  The smell of fresh bread wafting through my apartment is like a warm hug from the universe telling me everything will be okay. 

In the broad spectrum of breakfast pastries my absolute favorite is the cinnamon roll.  The combination of pillowy, buttery dough, cinnamon, and a slightly tangy cream cheese icing makes my heart sing and pairs very well with a cup of french press coffee.  

To fend off the sadness of Monday (and my last weekday shift at Anthro), I decided to make cinnamon rolls.  I’ve been using the same recipe for years and only recently discovered these should be baked for 30 minutes instead of the suggested 15-18.  While the tops of the rolls are slightly golden after 15 minutes, the inside of the rolls are still raw and SEVERELY underbaked, so the longer baking time is critical to having a completely baked roll.  While all of the mixing, kneading, rising, and baking can be done within a few hours, I always opt to prepare the rolls the night before, let them rise in the fridge overnight, and bake early the next morning.