For the past days, I haven't been able to stop thinking about bread. That happens to me from time to time.
I have a new iteration of my
levain growing for some baking experiments tomorrow and the next few days thereafter, and although I could leave it still, I can't help but go count the bubbles every half an hour, and write down the events in my small baking notebook.
(If you live near my home in Vantaa, Finland and would like a loaf or two, let me know. I think I will have a lot more of them than my family can eat pretty soon.)
Another baking related project from the past year and half has been to try every recipe from
Richard Bertinet's first book,
Dough
. I have been working through the recipes slowly, at the same time trying different breads from books such as
Crust
from the same author, or from the baking forum,
The Fresh Loaf.
Baking my way through the 51 recipes in
Dough (I have four left), I have come to understand the power of simplicity in a whole new, very practical way.
The book is a basic introduction to baking great bread at home, and although by now, I have already grown out of its target audience, I really recommend it for anyone considering the way of life of a home baker. Its recipes range from baguettes to a variety of breads with more exotic seasonings, and the thing is that the best breads are the ones with the least impressive ingredients.
Breads with fancy ingredients like nuts, pecorino, or pancetta may sell books (don't get this wrong, they sure taste good too),
but when you want to bake a great bread, you use four ingredients:
- Flour
- Water
- Salt
- Yeast
If you want to still improve the bread, instead of adding anything new, you remove the fourth ingredient and grow your own yeast.
That's the perfect example for the minimalist ideal:
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
With all the unnecessary ingredients stripped away, you are ready to focus on what makes baking special -- the magic of bread, where the building blocks couldn't get any simpler but possibilities are without limits.
- You can change the timing and let the dough rest longer in a cool place. The flavor will be completely different.
- You can experiment with the way you work the dough.
- You can change the distribution of water and flour and create completely different breads.
- You can try new ways to shape the bread.
- You can heat your oven differently to see how that changes the results.
- There's no end to learning.
All of these things you miss when you impress yourself with special ingredients.
It's the same with life, really.
When you focus on stuff and showing off, you are destined to miss the fine details that are there to bring beauty to your every day. Like baking your own bread.
Now, enjoy your life and heat up the oven. I know I will.
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