First up—Cottage loaf as seen on Great British Bake-off (but not as good obviously). I ate this with a chicken recipe from Sohla El-Waylly’s Start Here—which I really want to like, but almost every recipe I’ve made from it so far has had some element that I find really frustrating so this is not an endorsement of the cookbook, sorry girl! The episode of GBBO where they make cottage loaves for a technical challenge is really funny and I loved revisiting it, and it’s what inspired me to dust off the kitchenaid mixer that I asked for for Christmas and hadn’t used yet lol. This bread was kind of plain and I obviously didn’t shape it right as you can see in the dough pics but I thought it turned out kind of cute anyways.
I know it looks crazy here on the top and this is where I realized I have no shaping skills and I needed to really send it on the slashes (see next)
Still looks rather freakish and misshapen here too…
A loaf only a mother could love <3
Next, I made Claire Saffitz’s Foccacia. I have made foccacia really well before using Samin Nosrat’s recipe, but I am trying so hard to not look at my phone and I had this recipe in a physical cookbook so I tried it and it did. not. rise. She said you can put it in the fridge to rise overnight and well, you can’t, or at least, it didn’t work when I did it. This is where the timing of baking stuff really gets to me. Maybe this is why bakers are baking so early in the morning. I wanted to have that experience so I put the dough in the fridge to rise overnight and then baked it in the morning and had Ashlyn over for breakfast to eat it and it was delicious but I just really hate when you feel such overwhelming disappointment when something doesn’t rise! I don’t want bread to taste like disappointment. I topped this with garlic and it was at least nice and crispy. Below is the dough that did not rise and then the bread that did not rise. And that would come back to bite me in the next recipe!!
French Onion Soup from Julia Child’s The French Chef. This was amazing and features the aforementioned focaccia as the croutes topping the soup. Tragically, even though this soup was made with love and greatly helped by some of my closest friends chopping all the onions with me and drinking and chatting in the kitchen while they caramelized, I WICKEDLY sliced my thumb while I was prepping the focaccia for the croutes. I was slicing it in half because I thought since it didn’t rise it would get too dense when I toasted it, and I was not following proper knife safety and slicing towards myself while trying to chat with my girls and it just slipped. I had to be seen to by various nurses (my girls). now I am changing a band-aid soo many times a day. I am both fascinated by my body’s healing process and ragingly pissed off that I am suffering a minor injury. I just finished this french onion soup at work for lunch though and it was so, so good. Thanks Julia!
Finally, I took on a project that was both functional and mostly successful! Recipe is obviously from sallys baking addiction lol. Making these bagels came at the end of a very relaxing Sunday for me and it felt pretty meditative. I would really love if they looked uniform and didn’t have all that splitting but obviously im just not a professional or even at the level of a Great British bake-off contestant. I try my best and I love to be a home cook. I really do. I love to be able to do other things while my bagels rise and just vibe out seeing if I can create something that I eat all the time . I love fresh bagels but there isn’t a place by me where I could get like a half down and they’d be really good. In my neighborhood there just aren’t a lot of bagel shops. It’s cool, we have a lot of other stuff. But I thought I should give it a try. You have to do a water bath for the bagels which I think is so cute. They float like little swimming floating rings in a mixture of honey and water, light golden. They set off my smoke alarm twice so I pulled them out of the oven late and the everything topped ones are a little too burnt-y but they’re still in my freezer for when I stumble out of bed with ten minutes or less until I have to leave for work, which is why I made them.
I wanted to be able to top this newsletter off with a really successful baking project to prove that like, I am really good at it after only trying a few recipes. Obviously I have baked before and I bake at work but mostly sweet stuff, and I am in a savory mood right now. But I am not a baker, guys. I hate being exact with measurements and timings. I like waiting for dough to rise, and it’s been so cold that I like having tasks to give me structure when I’m trying to get all the stuff done at home that I don’t want to do like laundry or whatever. But then I feel frustrated because I’ve placed another arbitrary restriction on my behavior and movements and I’m always, always, always convinced that I left the oven on after I get ready for bed and get in my bed and it’s soooo cozy but that voice in my head is like “the oven is on AND you probably left the door unlocked too” so I always get out and check. and pretty much it has never been on and the door has usually been locked too. If you have any suggestions for something savory that I should bake that is not sourdough (I don’t wanna talk about it, it’s just not for me sorry), please email me back <3
love to everyone for real and forever,
rube
Loved this story, your trial and tribulations, and ouch, tried not to freak on the thumb cut:) I was never a baker as ya know, so saying you're far better than me is not really a compliment, but you are in oh so many ways and always love your delicious experiments in cooking, the voice you use to tell us about them, and you
of course your mama loves the cottage loaf-wish I could have tasted it lol