The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
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Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#2If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries.
It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#3> Viewed through this lens, the modern illusion of control shatters, but something much more liberating takes its place. The recipe is a suggestion. The rules of baking — baker’s percentages, hydration levels, the established ratio of flour-to-water-to-fat — are the underlying framework. This is the scaffolding.
Look, the author isn't technically wrong. But also, I have to point out that the reason for all the control and preciseness is replicability.
If you measure out everything by gram, mix/kneed for the right amount of time, set the temperature the the right number, and bake for the right amount of time, you'll get the same loaf, texture, everything, every single time.
That's why we have modern store bread loafs. That's why all bakeries aren't using more "artistic" methods of intuiting the amount of ingredients.
So long as you can accept that by doing thing by feel you'll end up with loaves that are rocks, crumbs, or dough balls. That are overcooked or undercooked. Then yeah, you can intuit as much as you like. Sometimes you'll get something good. You'll even get better at it till you usually get something good.
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#4If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
The american pallet is simply different and all our breads tend to be sweeter. The other part of this is that amercian breads tend to only use 1 grain, wheat. And they tend to either use whole wheat or bleached wheat.
Even when something is a "9 grain" bread, usually what that actually means is it's wheat bread with other grains in the crust.
Very hard to find a rye bread in the US.
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#5If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
I’ve always found King Arthur to be reliable? Their recipes are good and include metric, you can get the flour anywhere and they’re very proactive with support if you have questions about tweaking. Also good books.
Good bread exists, it’s just not cheap like it is in Europe.
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#6If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
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Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#7Of course, bakery products like that are really made on production lines like this.[1] There's a whole industry for artisanal bread making machinery.
Machinery for fancy twisted form factors is available. Here's the Fritsch Multitwist.[2] That seems to be more of a European thing. Although it can be configured to make big pretzels.
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#8If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
I think you'll find two things are true about American bulk baked goods:
- The quality is highly uniform.
- The quality is highly bland.
As with any mass-produced food, the goals are typically quantity and low cost, though often with a putative appearance of quality or artisanal character. The compromises are largely against a high-quality product, though there are places where this may be found, albeit at far higher prices.
Of you may bake your own.
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#9Speaking of loafs and culinary precision, from my father's side they always used single cut even to get half of loaf, I used 2 cuts when I wanted half loaf and that annoyed them because when they wanted full loaf after me, they first had to remove my remaining half loaf. How do you cut your bread, single cut (wedge) or double cut?
Re: The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision
#10If there are these places on the internet the article mentions which perfect bread ingredients “to the gram”, someone should share that with American bakeries. It’s near impossible to find decent bread, compared to EU countries like France/Belgium/Germany. :(
I’ve always found King Arthur to be reliable? Their recipes are good and include metric, you can get the flour anywhere and they’re very proactive with support if you have questions about tweaking. Also good books. Good bread exists, it’s just not cheap like it is in Europe.
King Arthur recipes are good in my limited home baking experience. As long as you remain somewhat near to it, you’ll get something edible.
I’ve found though for things like hydration or proofing times your environment is going to have a noticeable impact on that.
King Arthur recipes are written with their products in mind, so if you’re using other flour make sure to check the protein content and that it matches! I’ve made that mistake before when I had consistently bad results and realized the flour I had was quite a bit lower in protein content despite having the same general “all purpose” moniker.