Like all things “artisanal” and “artisan,” bread has become one of the most bastardized forms of subsistence in the modern world. Bread has been a staple food in the meals of cultures across the world and across time. Origins of bread are not well documented, but it is believed that flatbreads (breads without yeast) have spanned across at least 30,000 years. Since then, bread has taken steps forward into the modern era with the advent of commercial yeast, Rohwedder’s invention of sliced bread, and today, millions of breadmakers that went from store shelves, to kitchen counters, to lining the walls of every thrift store in the tri-state area. Like my sister’s push towards becoming more sustainable, economical, and ecologically responsible, I too felt the bug and made a decision to save money and eat better by baking my own bread.
Whether it is just to decrease spending at the grocery store or to earn money at the farmer’s market, beginning your own bread baking enterprise can be simple, but to begin baking “artisan” bread, it will require as little as buying a bread machine or as much as changing your lifestyle and building a hearth oven in your backyard. Below is a list of resources to help you begin your bread career.
The Fresh Loaf
The Fresh Loaf is “a community for amateur artisan bakers and bread enthusiasts!” and is where I began my bread baking endeavor. Filled with tons of community members ranging from bread pan beginners to hearth bakery bakers, there is a ton of information and specific questions answered. Their lessons teach you to begin with the four basic ingredients: water, salt, flour, and (commercial) yeast and take your through adding things like sugar and butter to make a sandwhich bread and a quick 10 tips to baking better bread. Their Baker’s Handbook helps define baking terminology and gives quick recipe snips that make baking bread feel more like an experimental art than a science. If you’re a beginner and want to explore baking bread sans a bread machine, The Fresh Loaf is a great place to visit.
Tartine Bread
A great next step after enjoying the plethora of data at the Fresh Loaf, Chad Robertson and Eric Wolfinger (photographer) create a visually and literally stunning piece of literature that goes beyond a cookbook and enters the realm of an anecdotal confession that, if nothing else, inspires you to daydream about travelling through Europe to find a baker’s chateau to stay in while you study under his/her wing. Robertson is highly noted around the country and is followed by many members of The Fresh Loaf, ergo, if you’re having trouble, you have a community to fall to. This book suggests the use of a Dutch Oven Combo Cooker for your sourdough boules, which after ordering, I found no use for after experimenting with a more versatile baking stone and metal bowl option (see Birdsong Bread below). More than a cookbook, Tartine Bread is a great rainy-day-read that takes you through creating a sourdough starter (in lieu of commercial instant yeast) all the way to baking your first loaf of Tartine Basic Country Sourdough. After you’ve mastered that, Robertson describes several other bread recipes, as well as simple days-old bread recipes that are easy enough for a baker yet decadent enough to impress any company you have over. This book should definitely exist in every bread baker’s pantry.
I have the pleasure of knowing the proprietor of this blog and I would be a fool not to support him! A self admitted admirer of Tartine Bread, this blog’s step-by-step sourdough journey takes a similar approach besides a seemingly huge difference of using a baking stone and metal bowl rather than a combo cooker. His methods vary slightly from Robertson, but like I mentioned above, baking bread is a lot of art mixed with a little bit of science, which I believe most bread authorities would agree with. With that said, how you bake bread depends entirely on your lifestyle, freetime, and your palate. Birdsong Bread is filled with great recipe variations of ingredients, methods, and flavors that inspire anyone to explore their own tastes. After months of documenting his experimentation and exploration, this blog holds recipes for everything from “Whole-Wheat Heaven” to “Hazel What? Hazelnut!!” and even some non-sourdoughs like a beautiful brioche (“50% Butter, 100% Awesome”). Birdsong Bread is attentive and responds to comments and questions regularly and, for me personally, has acted as a mentor by answering dozens of questions and helping me to shape my first loaves. This blog can be intimidating at first, but acts as great fuel to becoming better bread baker.
