Kneading Journalism

With one enriched dough recipe you can make chewy dinner rolls, or turn them into hotdog/hamburger buns. Give it a try! I hope you like it, and please subscribe on YouTube, and to my e-mail list. Donate

In this episode of The Baking Journalist a German theme: breakfast rolls or Brötchen, and three differences between journalism in Germany and the U.S. I hope you like it, and please subscribe on YouTube, and to my e-mail list. Donate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZihP0uh3JU

It’s been a while since my last Baking Journalist episode. I had been mulling over the topic of not being perfect, or needing to fail, to make progress in journalism and in bread baking.  And then I was hit by a car. I couldn’t bake, or type, or do many of the things we don’t often think about every day. All of the sudden I had a lot of time to think about those things, and so much more.  https://youtu.be/4AVdBmZQc8A

Bread seems to be having a renaissance: amid the coronavirus pandemic, people seem to be buying bread (if they can find it), flour, and yeast at unprecedented rates. I’ve been a bread baking and journalism evangelist for a good while, and I was honored to talk little about my journey so far, and about home bread baking on the radio recently. I was a guest (not the host!) on the Sound of Ideas with my friend Mike McIntyre. I transcribed some of my bread thoughts for you, in case you missed the show. If you have any other ideas, please get in touch! Also, please check out my book: Kneading Journalism: Essays on baking bread and breaking down the news!

In a month that brought some pretty serious lows, I’m really honored to have The Baking Journalist project featured in Northeast Ohio’s preeminent food magazine Edible Cleveland! Lisa Sands and photographer Laura Watilo Blake stopped by my humble abode while talking, baking, and (hopefully) enjoying some of my basic breads. It really was a pleasure to share this project with them and their readers. I was a little apprehensive that my breads wouldn’t be good enough, or my kitchen wasn’t big enough, or whatever. But Lisa said Edible Cleveland likes to talk to real people, creating and enjoying food. I definitely qualified! It may be a little while before I can bake like I had been doing, but I’ll keep trying. This experience has definitely put some wind in my sails.

Here’s an update on my quest to up-skill my baguette game. This isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it’s a good start. And you can do it, too! I hope you like it, and please subscribe on YouTube, and to my e-mail list. Donate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD5TiA-izec

So much of my bread journey so far has been about no-knead breads that serve a purpose, and the Swiss Zopf bread sort of fits in that trend. My sandwich bread is helping to save us a little money; my Rosemary Asiago is helping us to, well, eat more Rosemary Asiago bread; but the Zopf is a nice looking bread that connects us to the Swiss part of our lives. The great thing about this bread is that it looks complicated, but is relatively straight-forward once you figure out the braiding pattern. “Zopf” in German literally means “braid,” but a traditional Zopf only uses two strands instead of three. (Although I saw one with five!)

This post is about a side of home bread baking that I’ve not spoken to many people about: cost. If you dip into the bread baking section of social media you’ll be amazed by the artisan works of edible art. Professionals and amateurs alike post photos of loaves beautifully decorated with ivy patterns or artistic folds; videos show time-lapse views of skilled dough shaping and loaf preparation. I appreciate those skills, and continue to try to learn them, but this post isn’t about that. This post is about home baking loaves of sandwich bread to support a family, and how much that costs, with probably more detail than is necessary. My backstory and detailed cost breakdown will follow, but here’s the point: Baking loaves of wide-pan wheat-white-oat bread myself cost us up to $3.80, lasting a week and a little longer. Buying bread ran us $3.57 per week, but could be up to $5.57 without cheap bread options. (I’ll explain.)