Week 8: The End...For Now!

I have never liked endings. The finality of something wonderful ending, even if it's the right time for it, or something I knew was coming, makes me sad. Over the years, I have tried to view endings as beginnings wearing disguises, but there is always a sense of loss, whether it's the end of a school year, the end of a good movie, or the end of a project like this one.

I realize that simply because Genius Hour is almost "over" does not mean I can never make bread again. I hope that I will continue to bake, as I really genuinely enjoy it, and have loved developing my skills over the past two months. I am proud of how far I've come, and I hope this intrinsic motivation will be enough to motivate me to continue.

Not every loaf has turned out perfectly, and I've had to completely start over with the recipe I referred to last week, as unfortunately my starter dough did not have enough yeast in the air naturally to survive (I've also learned that bread baking can get quite science-y), but the experience of trying different methods, ingredients, and recipes has been extremely fun, informative, and of course, delicious!

Completing this project in a semi-structured classroom context has made me reflect more on my actions, and my feelings about my results more than I might have had I started this on my own. I was motivated to try harder, keep a regular schedule, and I feel that this was a major reason that I was able to progress as well as I did. Because of the research aspect of a Genius Hour project, I found myself trying to find as much information as possible on the topic, as opposed to doing a quick google and then calling it quits there. I looked at modern and traditional recipes, compared techniques, and tried to figure out what makes a really good loaf of bread.

As I'm planning my TED talk, I'm finding it difficult to narrow it down to just one topic. Do I talk about the bread making process and what I've learned about that? Do I talk about what I've learned about myself through bread making? Can I address one without the other? I've watched other TED talks to try to figure out the direction I want to go in, but I'm still torn. I'm not sure that my topic is inspiring exactly, nor is there a lesson I want my audience to take away, at least not insofar as I've considered yet, but I think this needs to simply be a story. One of possibility and creativity, one of trying something new because you might surprise yourself.

Week 7: The Big Leagues

This is it. What I've been working up to, whether I knew it or not when I started this crazy project (and I suspect, deep down, that I did).

This is the recipe that will make or break me.

Tartine's basic Country Bread.

It sounds so innocent. So simple. And at its core, it is. The ingredients include whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, water and salt. Nothing else. There is nothing to hide behind, no novelty trick or flavouring that can save a botched attempt. 

Oh, and the recipe takes 2 weeks to complete. 

This is my first venture into the stunningly scientific but simultaneously intuition-dependent world of sourdough bread baking. Everything else has been minor league stuff, a warm up for the main event. Not only do you have to, quite literally, harvest yeast from the air (no convenient paper packets here!) but you have to create a starter dough to catch said yeast, and then feed it every day for about a week or so. You don't even get to touch an oven until the very end of the 2 weeks. And for all that blood, sweat, and most likely tears, you get two loaves of bread. Two pristine, professional quality, loaves of artisanal sourdough bread. 

If this project has taught me anything, it's that it's worth it. 

That's not to say that this recipe isn't already annoying me to no end. My starter, while promisingly bubbly at first (a good sign of fermenting dough and healthy yeast cultures), has fallen silent, offering little to no change in the past few days (I'm on my fourth day of feeding it) and I'm worried I've somehow killed it. I've followed every word of the recipe so far, but as I said, bread baking falls in a strange grey zone in the baking world. 

If cooking is an art, baking is supposed to be a science. You weigh and measure ingredients exactly, in the hopes that the desired result will be achieved with clinical precision. With bread baking, this is still true, but it's a living thing you're working with, and it needs to be cared for. Is it not rising fast enough? It might be cold, throw a tea towel on it. Did your yeast not foam up during the proofing? You might have killed it if the water was too hot. Learning how to walk that balance between art and science has been the biggest lesson I've learned from this project, and I honestly believe that I'm becoming a better cook and baker as a result. Unfortunately, I don't have much more information to offer at this stage as to the Tartine bread itself, but I will do my best to keep my starter alive, and hopefully in a little over a week I'll be able to share! In the meantime, I plan to read up more on the science behind fermenting dough, and what could vs. should be done to be successful. Reading testimonials from other home cooks might offer some insight as to why my experiment is less than picture perfect at the moment. Wish me luck!

Week 6: Going Against the Grain

Because of course I can't make things too easy for myself, I dove into the world of gluten free bread baking this week after reading an article on Bon Appetit. They made the-very valid- point that gluten free products tend to taste, well, awful. As someone with both family members and friends who eat gluten free, usually for health reasons, I recognize how frustrating this is. It also doesn't seem fair that I have spent this whole Genius Hour making a variety of delicious, complex tasting breads, when the options in the gluten free world typically have the texture of an old sponge and the flavour of... well nothing really. Yes, there are some options that do taste decent, but they have to be sourced out from specialty bakeries, and often are quite expensive.

My goal for this Genius Hour, was to become a better baker, specifically with bread, obviously. I wanted to become more confident, and more comfortable working with bread, as this is a skill I would like to continue to develop once this genius hour is over. With that in mind, looking down the road I know that I will be baking for friends and family, as, as I've stated before, bread is a very communal food, and I maintain that it tastes better when shared. I want all of my friends and family members to be able to eat the fruits of my labour, so adding a good wheat free recipe to my repertoire was on my "to-do" list.

I was so pleased with how this recipe turned out. I was completely out of my comfort zone with this bread, as the signs I would usually look for in a typical loaf (ie. gluten strands forming, elasticity of the dough after rising, etc.) did not apply. Instead, I had to follow the directions and hope for the best. Thankfully, it turned out almost perfectly! The flavour was outstanding, the texture was much better than expected, and other than needing to have some pretty wacky ingredients on hand, I see no reason why this bread couldn't be in someone's weekly repertoire.

Bon Appetit's Healthy-ish "Super Seedy Gluten-Free Bread"
Flavour: nutty, rich
Crust: lightly crisp, perfect
Crumb: very dense
Chewiness: Dense, but satisfying
Great for: just eating, toasted
Overall rating: 9.5/10

Week 5: New Insights

What started out as a cool school project has now become one of my favourite parts of the week. I thought this would be a fun side project, making bread and eating well, but it has become so much more than that.

Had I attempted to take this on myself, making bread at least once a week, I probably would have given up after a week or two. I tend to jump into passion projects head first with extreme enthusiasm, but as soon as the initial adrenaline rush wears off, it becomes a real struggle for me to stay committed. Because I am essentially forced to work on this every week for school, I have stuck with it, and I've actually been able to see myself improve.

Making bread might sound like a cute, quaint, pioneer woman sort of hobby, but I had read before of the almost meditative quality it can have. I'm sorry to say that I had brushed this off as hippie-talk, but I have become "one of them". Somewhere between waiting for the yeast to proof and kneading the dough over and over, I'm able to forget whatever has happened to be stressing me that day and lose myself in the comforting process of combining flour, water, yeast and salt in varying combinations and with varying degrees of success until I'm face to face with a beautiful golden loaf of gluten-y goodness.

It's amazing how good bread makes people feel. As soon as the first hint of that yeasty, warm smell comes wafting out of the oven, my roommates start asking when they can have some. Bread has always had a communal quality about it, something to be shared. It's one of the most basic, and one of the oldest foods in existence, and there's something almost primal awakened when a warm loaf is cut open.

All this is simply to say that I am so grateful for this assignment for helping me to keep working away at this, and for finding something I truly love and that I want to continue to improve in. I loved the idea of genius hour when I first heard of it, and I appreciated what it could do for students from a distant, theoretical point of view, but now that I've been able to experience it firsthand, there is no doubt in my mind that I want to incorporate it into my future classes. Everyone deserves to have time to do something they love, or explore something they think they might love. It can build classroom communities, help a teacher get to know her students, and break down the arbitrary boundaries and social systems that seem to be created in elementary school. I would love to know if there's been any work done with regards to investigating the mental health benefits of having time to pursue a passion project, because I know that it has made me extremely content.

This past week was incredibly busy. I found myself tired and exhausted most evenings, overwhelmed with work, and counting down the days until the end of the term. I'm typically an early to bed, early to rise kind of person, but one night after an evening class, I came home absolutely wired, knowing there was no way I was going to be able to get to sleep any time soon. Without really thinking, I pulled out flour, salt, olive oil and got to work making focaccia. For a little while, I was still running through everything I still needed to get done for the week, assignments to be done, lessons to prep, but after a while, my mind quieted down, focusing on the texture of the dough, whether it needed more time to rise, was I kneading it enough, and before I knew it, I had a pan of focaccia that my roommates and I were tearing in to. I was calm, happy, full and sleepy.

Thanks to this genius hour, I might just make it through this term.

Week 4: Making Progress!

Another week, another bread! Best Genius hour ever? Maybe!

If you'll remember from last week, I had wanted to experiment with add-ins. At its most basic, bread is just combining 5 ingredients: flour, water, yeast, salt, and sugar, and you will get people who would argue about the necessity of sugar. Why is it then, that if you buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store, the list of ingredients is as long as your arm? I understand that many of these are preservatives (yet another reason I'm only too glad to be making my own bread), but what about all of the sweeteners and oil? Is it really necessary to add to make a better loaf? And if so, what types and in what amounts?

I tried to keep this in mind as I searched for a new recipe to try this week. As I had also wanted to try more "traditional" recipes, I was quite happy to find, in my grandma's recipe box a recipe for an oatmeal bread that requires the addition of both vegetable shortening and molasses. 

Vegetable shortening is a fat made from vegetable oils, that gets its name from how it shortens the gluten strands the form in baked goods, like bread (Weston, 2009). I was surprised when I read this, as I had assumed that in bread making, the goal was to get nice long gluten strands. Isn't that the reason for all the fussing with yeast and the multiple rises? Shortening is supposed to help with creating softer, more tender baked goods however because of its higher fat content, but I had only ever thought to use it in things like pie crusts, where you want something soft and flaky. 

Given my skepticism about the bread, I wasn't expecting it to rise as much as it did! It more than doubled after the first rise, and in the oven it rose to towering heights above the edge of the pan. I had no idea what to expect when I cut into it, but as I waited for the loaf to cool (which I learned you should always do with bread, no matter how difficult it is to restrain yourself from cutting off a slice while it's still piping hot), the most amazing smell was coming out of the oven. The loaves I had made before smelled quite yeasty, or maybe a bit toasty and nutty, but this bread smelled sweeter. The molasses gave it almost a caramel-like smell (and flavour), and gave the bread its darker brown colouring. The actual texture of the bread was extremely soft and fluffy, which I can assume is because of the vegetable shortening. I'm interested to see if other forms of fat would create the same effect, or if this was unique to the vegetable shortening. This bread was amazing for breakfast, eating it on its own or with a cup of coffee, but unfortunately, it really was too sweet (for my taste) for sandwiches.

Oatmeal Bread

Flavour- lightly sweet

Crust- crisp when fresh, nice and soft later with a bit of chewiness

Crumb- very moist, fluffy texture

Chewiness- very fluffy, barely chewy

Great for- breakfast, tea time with butter on it

Overall rating- 8 out of 10

Next week, I would like to continue exploring the effects of fats and sweeteners on the flavour and texture of bread, and at some point I would still like to make a bread that requires a starter (fermented dough used in place of yeast)

Week 3: The Bread Blog Begins

As I actually began the hands on part of this Genius Hour project before the actual writing began, I have lots to catch you up on! I've made two loaves of bread and have quite a few questions I'd like to try and answer as I move forward.

Before I talk about the results of my two "experiments", I mentioned in a previous post that I would be assessing each loaf/recipe on a number of criteria. I have narrowed those criteria down to a few that I feel will allow me to both assess and describe each recipe fairly. These are:
- Flavour
- Crust
- Crumb
- Chewiness
- What the bread is especially great for

After recording each of these, I will consider the loaf as a whole, then give it a rating out of ten.

The first recipe I tried was for a fairly hands off "Heritage Bread" from Michael Smith's Back to Basics cookbook (2013). While the final product was quite tasty, actually making it was a bit stressful. I love descriptions in recipes, especially if I've never made that particular thing before, but it can also backfire if your version doesn't react the same way as they've said it should. When I mixed the ingredients for this dough (which did not require the yeast to proof, something I was both grateful for and skeptical of), the mixture was quite...soupy. Thankfully, this loaf is baked in a loaf pan, so it didn't matter in the end, but it also wasn't what I was expecting when he said it was a "high-moisture dough". The resulting bread was a perfectly respectable first start, with great flavour, although the crust was quite chewy after the first day. Thankfully, I was able to resuscitate it in the form of toast, but I definitely wasn't able to make any sandwiches with it.

Heritage Bread:
Flavour- yeasty and nutty
Crust- very thick and crackly; chewy past the first day
Crumb- fairly dense, small bubbles formed
Texture- nicely chewy, slightly spongy past the first day
Great for- toast or dipping in oil and vinegar
Overall rating- 7.5 out of 10

The bread I made the following week was The Minimalist Baker's "Easiest Whole Grain Seeded Bread". I chose this recipe because if I'm going to buy a loaf of bread from the store, I'm most likely to pick something with plenty of seeds or grains in it. I like texture in my bread, not to mention the health benefits. This recipe also seemed to be a nice step up difficulty-wise from the Heritage Bread. It was, again, a fairly hands-off recipe, but did have a few extra steps that required some attention. While not a mix-it-and-forget-it project, it also was not so difficult that I couldn't see myself making it every week or so. I ran into problems again with the texture of the dough, although this time it was so tough and unyielding that my hands started to cramp during the kneading process. I do feel that I've become better already at judging the right temperature for the "warm" water these recipes always call for. I know enough about yeast to know that the temperature does make a huge difference, and that too hot or too cold can kill the yeast (it is a living thing after all), and given how well this loaf rose, I think I'm coming along quite nicely. This bread was super tasty, and the texture was definitely better than the last loaf.

Whole Grain Seeded Bread:
Flavour- toasty, nutty, well rounded (from the seeds)
Crust- soft, with a bit of chewiness
Crumb- medium to small bubbles, not overly dense
Chewiness- fluffy, with just a bit of resistance
Great for- sandwiches, toast, anything
Overall rating- 9 out of 10

From these two weeks, I have a few areas I'd like to improve in:
- Understanding the effect add-ins (like fats or sweeteners) have on the flavour/texture of the bread
- Making a bread that requires a starter (fermented dough used in place of yeast)
- Trying more "traditional" recipes

Genius Hour Goals- Week 2

I have officially decided that I would like to explore bread making for my Genius Hour!

After discussing what a good genius hour project looks like (takes some research, is shareable, etc.) I felt confident that my idea to work on improving my baking skills, specifically with bread fit the criteria and would be my focus for the next couple of months.

My question, which you can also see in the quick slideshow I've shared on my Genius Hour Proposal Pitch page, is:
"Could I improve my bread making abilities enough that I could stop buying supermarket bread?"

I have a few goals in mind for this project:
- Become a more confident bread maker/baker in general
- Develop a better, more technical understanding of the science behind bread making (ie. what is the deal with yeast??)
- Be able to make high quality bread based on a number of predetermined criteria
- Keep the cost and difficulty of the recipe down as low as possible, so as to keep weekly bread making a realistic end goal

I am very much interested in healthy eating, and have become concerned with the amount of preservatives and sugar especially that supermarket bread can contain. I also feel that I tend to take bread for granted, not concerning myself too much if/when part of a loaf goes bad, and I would like to be less wasteful. Making my own bread will help to make me more invested in consuming my food before it spoils, as well as ensuring that I have control over what I'm putting into my body. I am motivated to eat smarter in general, and I hope this genius hour will help me to accomplish this!

I am going to evaluate my progress as objectively as possible, by rating and describing each loaf of bread on the same set of criteria:
- Flavour
- Crust
- Crumb
- Texture
- What this loaf is good for
- Overall rating out of 10

I will reflect on the techniques I used and any areas I would change the next time I tried the recipe. If I feel it is necessary, I may revisit a recipe later in the project, using the skills I've developed to improve upon my original results.

Each week I would like to try a new recipe or technique. I have already started this actually, and will report on the results of my experiments later on this blog. I will continue these weekly bread making sessions until the week of March 29.

I can't wait to get started, and I know some of my friends who have heard about this project are anxious for me to start as well!