Please don't do this to me!

Foodies beware!

I love food. Not all food, but lots of different foods.

I also love to make food.

Granted, I'm not great with fussy, complicated dishes (I tend to get distracted) or with "presentation." I like my food hearty, simple and filling.

That said, I do tend to be a bit more willing to experiment with breads -- fussy ones, hearty ones, ones with interesting shapes or tetures or flavors.

But, see, here's the thing: Even the easiest, quickest, least hands-on recipes take, at a minimum, two hours from pulling out your materials and ingredients to pulling it out of the oven and letting it cool for a few minutes before you start cutting.

So when an author writes a character who's a "foodie" I will NOTICE. When a character first spends the night at someone else's place, they don't usually go check out the kitchen for bread-baking staples before heading back to bed. Yet the next day (or later that same day, depending when they're gettin' it on) Foodie will make a quick store run, come back, and, in the time it takes to make a fresh pot of coffee, have a complicated meal, including fresh, homemade yeast bread, on the table and ready to eat.

I call bullshit.

Unless you're making it from a mix, soup is gonna take at LEAST half an hour, minimum, to wash, chop, saute, and simmer everything.

And the bread? Well, mixing and kneading and measuring is gonna be at least a good 15-20 minutes, unless you're using a mixer with a dough-hook attachment, and no one in books uses one of those, because, let's face it -- your new flame back there in the bedroom isn't gonna have one if he isn't into cooking, too. Or if he does, it's gonna be super-loud & it'll wake him up Too Soon. Then, there's the 45 min to an hour the dough's going to need to double in bulk. Punch it down, shape it, put it in or on the appropriate baking container, and give it another half-hour or so to proof (and don't forget to start warming up your oven!). Then 20 minutes to an hour to bake, and then it needs to cool for a while before you can even start slicing it and we're already up to, what, 2.5 hours, MINIMUM.

Now, there are a few recipes which skip the kneading step, and even a couple which skip the proofing, but really, that only knock maybe 45 minutes or so off the length of time needed. And some of those recipes call for sponging the dough, which means instead of that initial one hour rise, you may be waiting for three or more.

And even with frozen dough, you need to wait for it to come to room temperature and double in bulk before you can start baking it, and that takes a good hour or so.

So, no, unless it's a pretty damn complicated soup recipe, you're not going to be starting the soup first; your bed-buddy's probably NOT going have live yeast just lying around, (let's face it; probably not the appropriate cooking pans, either)... and, no, you're not going to have fresh, homemade bread in under an hour.

Unless, of course, you're God (in which case, come see me.)

Therefor: Unless you have baked bread and know how long it's gonna take, unless you're going to reflect that in your text, please, please don't write characters who can do it in less than a third of the time it takes to make your average pot of soup.

Adventures in Baking -- I have a new cookbook!

buy from Amazon

So I actually bought this book a few months ago (by which I mean something less than a year, but I'm not guaranteeing how MUCH less; I don't remember exactly.) I've been wanting to try it, because the no-knead part of it is seductive, but upon reading through, parts of the preparation require more effort than "normal" bread-making.

However, I have some time today, and nothing else I want to do, so I decided to give it a shot, and maybe chronicle this first attempt. 

The book is set up with several basic recipes (which can be stored in the refrigerator after rising so you can bake whenever you'd like -- I can do the rise at bedtime and make fresh bread the next morning for breakfast, if I want to go to the effort, but more on that later.) The basic recipes are followed by several variations on mostly form, although I believe later in the book it gets into add-ins as well. Each basic recipe builds in both ingredients and technique on the one before, so I'm starting on Master Recipe #1, and depending on how it goes...well, we shall see what we shall see. Perhaps there will be fresh bread for dinner tonight.

Now, just a word about that extra effort at the baking stage -- These recipes are for artisan-style bread, which means free-form (no loaf pans!) baked on a stone in the oven with water. In practical terms, what this means is you put a broiler pan on the bottom rack of your oven and a baking stone on the middle rack, then heat the oven up VERY hot (450*F). The loaf is shaped and set to rest on a separate cookie sheet, and when it's ready to go in the oven, and the oven is heated up, you have to quickly slide it from cookie sheet onto baking stone. I'm thinking I need to invest in one of those cookie sheets with three sides open or a pizza peel (but for now, I'm just going to use a regular cookie sheet flipped over). 

So. Onward and upward!

Master Recipe #1: Easy Artisan Dough

6-1/2 c unbleached all-purpose or bread flour

1-1/2 T instant or bread machine yeast

1-1/2 T fine table or kosher salt

3 c lukewarm water

1. Measure. Spoon the flour into a measuring cup, level with a knife or your finger, then dump the flour into the mixing bowl.

2. Mix. Add the yeast and salt to the flour. Stir together with a wooden spoon or Danish dough whisk  (oooh, I want!!). Pour in the water and stir together until just moistened. Beat 40 strokes, scraping the bottom and the sides of the bowl, until the dough forms a lumpy sticky mass.

3. Rise. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature ( 72*F/22*C) in a draft-free place for 2 hours or until the dough has risen nearly to the top of the bowl and has a sponge-like appearance.

4. Use right away or refrigerate. Use that day or place the dough, covered with plastic wrap, in the refrigerator for up to 9 days before baking.

Here's my dough through #2, all mixed and ready to rise.

I don't know whether I'm going to start the actual baking part today or tomorrow, but whenever it is we'll be making one or more baby boules.

ETA: It's been more than a few days since I last wrote this, but I'm back for a quickie update. This is awesome; the first time I baked the bread, it turned out gorgeous and yummy and practically disappeared in no time flat. I have pictures.

We're thinking that this might make a decent bread bowl for soup; it's chewy, with a heavy crust. I'm gonna try it sometime with a nice, thick soup. YUM! :D