The Zen of Breadmaking: Sunday Musings
It’s been a dozen years since the interloper took up residence in my kitchen. The size of a mailbox, it moved onto my counter and never left. Occasionally I’d stick it in the appliance garage… (I love that name!) usually only for company.
I didn’t realize until yesterday that it had robbed me.
I always loved the feel of dough as it morphs from a sticky mass to a smooth and beautiful ball ready to be formed at will into rolls, loaves, braids, or flatbread. It was time to break up with my automatic breadmaker.
Yesterday I retrieved my brand new sourdough starter from the top of the water heater, amassed ingredients, and began to make bread by hand for the first time since 1995.
It came back easily. Bread dough is sensitive to the rhythm of your hands as you knead it. The more even the rhythm, the better the texture. With each pull and fold, the bread began to take shape.
Even though it takes some strength to knead dough, I noticed I was feeling more relaxed and mellow, getting lost in the creation process.
Soon I had a beautiful ball of shiny dough ready to rise. I covered it and waited 2 hours. Then pounded it down and kneaded it again, forming it into two long loaves of whole wheat sourdough bread.
At last: fresh baked bread from scratch. It was time to find out if my sourdough starter adventure last week was successful. It was! The loaves were much larger than I thought they’d be (next time I’ll make 3 loaves instead of 2.) And I could have let it rise just a little longer.
But, the texture was good. And it was yummy coming right out of the oven. Didn’t even need butter! Yay!
Now the challenge is to keep making bread with the starter. It needs to be refreshed and used at least once every month or so.
I hope my friends aren’t all on a diet…they’re about to get breaded!
Beth the baker
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Beth Terry, CSP, is a Professional Speaker and author, and sometime baker, who lives in Phoenix and works anywhere they’ll fly her.
©2007 Beth Terry Seminars, Inc.
