If you’ve ever tried your hand at baking bread, hop on the ever-burgeoning bandwagon of middle-aged women who are finding themselves elbow deep in dough.
I tried. I failed more often than succeeded. Even with a bread machine, which is kind of a cheat but who kneads 😊 to know that?
Is there, truly, anything better than fresh, warm bread? I don’t think so. I once worked in an office building with a sandwich shop on the ground floor. Every morning, the smell of newly baked bread wafted through the vents and right into my heart.
But baking bread isn’t nearly as easy as eating it.
The hardest part is the exacting precision it takes to nail a recipe. It can’t just be two teaspoons of salt. It needs to be two EXACT teaspoons of salt. Five cups of flour means five EXACT cups of flour. No spillage over the sides. No rolling hills. No flippant scoops.
A few extra clumps could be the difference between a perfect loaf and a brick.
Making bread is not like making chili, where a dash of this and a few sprinkles of that never makes much of an impact because it’s really just a vat of hodgepodge.
But with bread, veering off-road means you’ll usually land in a ditch.
The details make the difference. Not in a general sense, in the most specific sense.
Miss one ingredient, it’s a completely different outcome.
Mistake one measurement, it’s a completely different concoction.
Salted butter is not the same as unsalted butter.
110°F vs 120°F decides whether the yeast is activated or dies. Harsh, but true.
Heaping and leveled teaspoons don’t even exist in the same universe.
It’s not just a list of ingredients thrown into a pot like chili. There’s no room for ad-lib.
Exactitude counts.
But not just with bread.
Recently, someone told me a story about a person I love. I knew what happened, and some of the details weren’t accurate. Correcting them changed the whole story.
The difference is the same as the one between a perfect loaf and a brick.
Usually we say, “oh it doesn’t matter,” because most of the time, it doesn’t.
But sometimes, it really does. Sometimes the finer points matter most.
Precision is meaningful. Because close enough often doesn’t even come close.
There’s a lot of nuance in a mixing bowl.
Like this object-based story telling? My memoir, Piece by Piece: A Life Remembered through Things Lost, is available here. 📖💙
Thanks for always being loyal when stories are being retold. Baking bread is a lot like tried and true friendships for sure. I have found that the love put into a loaf makes up for any slight imperfections. If you want to be a casual bread maker I have a free lesson waiting 🤍
I think that's why I don't bake bread! I feel like my life is already so rigid and structured in many ways. I'm such a rule follower- I prefer to wing a recipe and see what I come up with. I'd love to swap you some bread for brownies )