The continuation on bread, the stuff of life, the first article.

There are myriad reasons to make bread from scratch, and more not to. So why does anyone who is not a baker bother? Like any process, the steps between are the work, doing something for yourself, better yet for others. Bread is really a byproduct of the yeast, so in a way you are a farmer tending a herd of microbes, caring for them, providing them a perfect environment to flourish in. Your role flips, you are the butcher, harvesting their beautiful efforts, ending the feast in ferocious heat. It is simply fascinating how a series of changes brings about something so sublime.

Flour, Salt, Yeast

Potential is why I make bread, each stage allowing an opportunity of expression. Mixing the dry ingredients and the timing of your choices gives you a unique product each time. Some so similar, yet you yourself can see how it has varied slightly. Potential at the end when it is being shared and tasted, quite often, by someone who has never had from scratch bread fresh from the oven. That is the potential I seek, the widened eyes of flavour and texture discovery revealing complexity in the unassuming. Consideration dawns, the possibility that they could also make this bread? How can it be so very tasty? It can’t be that easy surely?

Giving this experience, breaking bread with others is a template worth applying to life in general. Use your hands, use your heart, do something with intention, give yourself time to express. Bread bought from so many stores, identical, bland in comparison fills only the gap of hunger, empty of soul. Sharing something made by your own hands, with less ingredients than the fingers of one hand, now that is magic.

The work to make this bread sounds complicated when you explain it, as does anything worth doing. People are afraid of time it seems, something that can’t be completed in a segment of an hour is simply not within realm of possibility. All that is required is a bit of forethought, the actual time it takes during each step is mere minutes.

Time the bake if you can so it is coming out of the oven a little before it will be eaten. This gives an extra punch to the experience for me as well as those who partake. The warmth, still steaming a half hour later, melts the butter with glee. The crust is in a state of such perfection that lasts only short while, crispy yet soft, not yet fully hardened as the moisture equalizes in the coming hours. The smell is maddening, it permeates every nook and cranny of your senses filling you with anticipation.