Bribery, Blackmail, and Physical Threats

Let me begin with an apology for the delay in posting the winners of the essay/rap/poetry/short story/memoir contest for a copy of Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers. Susan kept saying, "Tell them how hard it was, tell them it was really tough." Pshaw! None of us had any problem picking a winner. Picking a single winner, though… Most of our compromises in this blog are a matter of allowing the other two to do any stupid thing they want and then explaining, when it's our turn, how wrong the others are. The United Nations it's not — or, on second thought, maybe it is. Consequently our negotiations with each other regarding the winner threatened to devolve into blackmail, bribery, and threats of physical violence. (Fortunately the contestants were much better behaved.)

At any rate we lucked out. We ended up with two extra copies of the book, giving us a total of three copies, so we're sending a copy to each of our winners. Still not easy though, only one of the copies is autographed and so we had to decide who got that. I'm happy to report, though, that we chose that singularly lucky individual with a minimum of bribery, blackmail, and outright threats of physical violence. And so, below, are the winners of essay/rap/poetry/short story/memoir.

Zach's entry was originally captured and held captive in the Google Mail version of Guantanomo Bay (the spam filter). Zach, however, hired a good lawyer (named, oddly enough, "Beth") and had habeus corpus invoked and got a hearing, uh, reading. Smart move, he won the autographed copy:

Two weeks before my wedding, I made sourdough starter — my second attempt ever. I wanted to bake communion bread for the wedding service to be held on my family’s farm. My fiancée, Kira, and I were excited about using wild yeast as leaven — some of it from the very air of the farm on which we would marry, but I was nervous that it wouldn’t be ready in time.

I mixed water and flour, and refreshed it daily, putting the starter in the basement of the farmhouse to keep it safe from the July heat. I made frequent trips down the worn, wooden steps to check on it, hoping the yeast were happy with what I had given them. After about a week, it was bubbling with life and ready to make bread!

Two days before my wedding, I made a firm starter. The next day, I mixed up the dough, fermented it, shaped it into boules, and put it in the refrigerator. I woke up on my wedding day with two thoughts in my head: Today I will marry the woman I love and I need to get the bread in the oven! The sourdough baked into some of the best loaves I've ever made. It was so special to carry it down the aisle alongside some homemade wine from Kira’s grandfather. I know I will often think of that feeling as I am baking bread, and the smell fills up the kitchen like it did on my wedding day.

Zach won the autographed copy, because women are romantic and Susan and Beth ganged up on me (I think I mentioned physical threats above). But I certainly can't argue he didn't deserve to win, it's a nice story.

But Susan, in particular, fell in love with Darby's Rap song. This may be because she's going to turn 40 next year and so is attempting to recapture the youth she lost to drugs, bread, rock n roll, and raising sheep. Well, bread and sheep, anyway.

Making Bread, A Rap: "Rollin' (In the Dough)"

YO! I make bread cuz I like to knead
The dough in my hands doesn’t make them bleed
I got a bunch of active yeast in the freezer
I got a bin of flour, a real crowd pleaser

Don’t got much money, just a wad of tens
Don’t need a Cadillac don’t need a Benz
I got a secret weapon to make my endz

(Chorus)
I be rollin’ (rollin’) Rollin’ (rollin) Rollin’ in the dough…
It be risin’ in my kitchen mighty high and mighty slow
Don’t need no BLING to reprezent
Just my bowl, my hands and ingredienz

YO My husband likes to call me honey
But he’d rather squeeze it on his bun-ies
My kids reprezent making little dough snakes
The bread they eat, the crust they hate

I prefer my slice with jam and butter
My serrated knife is a superior cutter
Adding too much wheat germ will make you sputter

(Chorus)
I be rollin’ (rollin’) Rollin’ (rollin) Rollin’ in the dough…
It be risin’ in my kitchen mighty high and mighty slow
Don’t need no BLING to reprezent
Just my bowl, my hands and ingredienz

PROOF OUT, Homies!

Ya gotta admit, it's clever. I even found my toes tapping and fingers snapping — albeit not at the same time — but I suspect that's my lack as an old, cranky, white male with a fondness for Bach and Diana Krall. Darby gets an honorable mention and a copy of the book sans autograph. Which leads us to the other honorable mention and book.

Speaking as an old, cranky, white male with a fondness for Bach and Diana Krall, cute is not something I have much use for. So, although this story may seem cute, it's not. Instead it is my favorite because there's nothing I admire more than a four-year old boy with both gumption and bread-making ability. Carla posted this story on her blog and garnered the last book:

My brother and his wife live in an Amish community, and have largely adopted a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity. Not long ago both parents and several older siblings were called away from the farm for the day, and their youngest son was left in the care of his elder brother. Four-year-old M. was his big brother’s right hand man for a few hours, but eventually he lost interest in the shop work and wandered back up to the house where he decided to make bread. He tried to call his sisters for some advice, but finding their cell phones out of range, he launched in on his own. He had watched the process many times, and was sure he could do it by himself. (Click here to read the rest of the story and a photo.)

So, despite the delays, we have our winners. And Susan, Beth, and I had a great time reading all the entries. And each, in it's own way, was a treat as special and particular to the baker as a loaf of bread. Thank all of you so much. And would Zach, Darby, and Carla please e-mail us their addresses.

Click on the links below to see the rest of the stories:
We Have One Winner
The Lost Stories
Deadline
Breadtime Stories
Being the Heartland
Tales & Travails
Prizes! Awards! Gimmicks!

Technorati: Food | contest | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking

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We have one winner!

Where's the darned drum roll when I want it?

It is our great pleasure to announce the winner of the random drawing for a signed copy of Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers.


Bling! Bling! Bling!

Our first winner is:

Robin of Around the Island, written from around her kitchen island in Israel. She tells me it is not a food blog but I see recipes, plates of tasty looking food there, plus: duh, the name. grin

Robin says the book is for her husband, who does most of their baking, some with the help of very small people - which is always challenging! Maybe if we ask nicely, Robin will share pictures and stories of breads from her, I mean her husband's, new book.

We'll be back in a day or two with the winner for the best story. Because choosing a winner is hard. Very hard.

Technorati: Food | Beth | local breads | bread

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The Lost Stories

When we started our contest to give away a copy of Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers, we thought that perhaps a few people would share an amusing story of bread-baking and we were right. A few more — maybe more than a few — shared heart-warming stories of baking bread, while others wrote a poem or a song. We have had a blast reading all of these entries and would like to thank you all again for taking the time to join in.

We were, however, dismayed when we got a message from someone asking why we hadn't posted his story in the final roundup because we certainly didn't mean to leave anyone out. A lot of work went into your stories and they are each wonderful in their own way. This got me started thinking about missing entries and where they might have gone... a train of thought that stopped at a gMail spam folder. A spam folder that is apparently a part of the Bermuda Triangle since it held all sorts of missing things. Including a number of contest entries.

Oops.

So, with our apologies we present the actual last round of bread stories to be followed shortly by announcements of winners. Four of them.

What? Did she say four?
Yes, I believe she did!
But... I thought it was two?
It was but now isn't.
So FOUR people get copies of Local Breads? Cool!

Yes, we found two more copies of the book so we get to give copies to two lucky runnersup (er, runnerups?) ["runnersup" - Ed.]. So look for four winning names, starting tomorrow. In the meantime, on with the stories.

Zach tells us a story of a man, a woman, and their wild love for wild yeast:

Two weeks before my wedding, I made sourdough starter — my second attempt ever. I wanted to bake communion bread for the wedding service to be held on my family’s farm. My fiancée, Kira, and I were excited about using wild yeast as leaven — some of it from the very air of the farm on which we would marry — but I was nervous that it wouldn't be ready in time.

I mixed water and flour, and refreshed it daily, putting the starter in the farmhouse's basement to keep it safe from the July heat. I made frequent trips down the worn, wooden steps to check on it, hoping the yeast were happy with what I had given them. After about a week, it was bubbling with life, ready to make bread!

Two days before my wedding, I made a firm starter. The next day, I mixed up the dough, fermented it, shaped it into boules, and put it in the refrigerator. I woke up on my wedding day with two thoughts in my head: "Today I will marry the woman I love," and, "I need to get the bread in the oven!" The sourdough baked into some of the best loaves I have made. It was so special to carry it down the aisle alongside some homemade wine from Kira’s grandfather. I know I will often think of that feeling as I am baking bread, and the smell fills up the kitchen like it did on my wedding day.

(Beth dabs eyes with tissue)

Cerddinen offers excellent advice at the start of her tale of making Susan's Italiano No-knead Bread: "Make sure to completely read and understand the instructions." Excellent advice which she, of course, ignored. The story sounds like my bread (this is Beth of the long, cold rise) as her dough goes in and out of the refrigerator because "I'm not waiting till 1 A.M. to put this sucker in the oven." (Kevin, she served it with North Carolina Style Vinegar Based BBQ Pork. Is the BBQ pig a secret message to you?) [The Legions of the Slow Order of the Pig are as grains of sand. - Ed.]

Don Luis shares his journey while seeking a new way of making his much missed crusty Italian bread after a move to Puerto Rico where basic ingredients including instant yeast and unbleached flour are impossible to find. Starting with a simple nine-step recipe for Pan de Luis and ending with a two-phase, 19 step bread-building process at Pan de Luis Redux, Don Luis seems to have mastered bread in a land that is 1400 miles from the nearest Whole Foods.

Druzsbaczk writes from Hungary (where 'cock' means water valve) [Thanks for that clarification - Ed.]

My family is gourmet, and we like delicate food as gifts, especially homemade things. Last year I planned to bake a german-style sourdough bread for my father. The procedure needs about 5 days.

Everything had gone well, on 23rd December morning I made the last step of feeding my sourdough, and wanted to wash the used spoon and other dishes. As I opened the cock, suddenly it dropped out, and stayed in my hand! I had to call my Father (excellent handyman), he came over in 20 minutes — so I had to cover all the bread's tracks: bowl, spoon, flour...

He fixed my cock, and did not realized the present sourdough — everything's OK! I baked the bread, it looked nice, father was surprised and happy, and we tasted it at dinner.

Bad surprise: tasty, but absolutely saltless! Unfortunately I forget to mix in salt before baking — this was the "sacrifice" of the cock...

Huiping checks in from Singapore to tell of her first attempt at bread, which looks awfully tasty for being deemed a partial success. She also has some photos of wonderful looking cranberry & black currant scones. And a cat who knows how to make himself at home at the table.

Baking Soda digresses mightily as she talks of being a stay-at-home-mom and how she started her blog. Then by way of making us all jealous, she bakes five kinds of bread from three new cookbooks. That's one busy woman!

Over at Anomalous Cognition, Jenny, well actually Eric, poses one of the eternal questions of life: "Time passed. I grew a garden, with a big parsley patch and a tomato plant (okay, twelve), and one day we decided the time had come to make tabbouleh fresh from the garden. 'And you'll make your pita bread?' Eric said to me. 'Maybe this time it will poof.'"

You have to go read her contest entry "Pitas" to see how it turns out.

Speaking of pitas and poofiness, BC of Beans and Caviar also made pita bread. Oddly, it was the first bread she ever made and she had never seen a pita before! Perhaps the title of the post "Pita Footballs" gives you a hint of what she encountered.

That's it for today. Check back tomorrow for the first winner of an autographed copy of Local Breads.

Technorati: Food | contest | Local Breads | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking

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Deadline

Today marks the cutoff date for our Local Bread contest. Susan, Beth, and I would like to thank everyone who's participated in the random drawing and particularly in the story contest. We'll announce the two winners within the next. In the meantime, here are the last of the story entries.

First, Carla Shafer and Zorra both posted their stories on their blogs. Carla offers an amazing story of a four-year-old boy making cinnamon rolls from scratch with no help.

In the meantime, Zorra offers a bit of advice on baking bread along with her sourdough recipe.

Amanda was prompted to start baking bread by a loaf her mother made when she was a young girl. But it took her 16 years to get around to it:

I have a vague memory of my mother sending me to school for a pioneer day with a small round loaf of bread. Years later I came across a recipe for Country Loaf, a large round loaf of bread. It reminded me of how good that bread tasted 16 or so years before, so I set out, armed only with Betty Crocker’s instructions, to make homemade bread.

I grabbed my all-purpose flour and the little bag of yeast that had been languishing on my pantry shelf and mixed, kneaded, prodded, poked, waited, worried and baked the afternoon away. I honestly didn't expect it to work. Several hours later I pulled a golden brown loaf of bread from my oven, just in time for dinner. I had done it! I had made bread with my own hands. My husband walked in the door, sniffed, then said "I didn't know you knew how to make bread." I told him, "Neither did I."

Four years later, I'm still at it. I have an ever-expanding library of bread books and am saving to buy myself a KitchenAid mixer. For me, bread making has gone from a way to pass the time to something interesting to do to something I am passionate about, all because of a little loaf of bread made by my mother 16 years ago.

Libby Maxey tells of her adventures with sourdough, replete with explosions:

I come from the west coast, where sourdough bread is a given. When my grandma used to come over for our regular Sunday lunch, she would always bring a packaged sourdough round to go with the soup that she had made. Although my mom ground wheat to bake bread for us, my heart belonged to that pre-baked, heat-and-serve sourdough. When I moved to upstate New York, where sourdough bread was neither plentiful nor particularly sour, I decided to bake my own. I was engaged, waiting for my fiancé to return from abroad, living alone in our new apartment and trying to learn how to cook. I had baked bread before, but not memorably. Little did I know how memorable my sourdough saga would turn out to be.

First, there was the starter that dried up, then the starter that molded, and then the starter that just sat there and did nothing. I didn’t realize that the last would do nothing for the bread, so I tried to bake with it. (At least it wasn’t moldy.) After a day of long, messy and indefinite rises, 10 P.M. found me shoveling a rather shapeless mass of grainy dough onto a cookie sheet, and hustling it into a hot oven. I left the oven door open, and reached for my tea kettle to add the final artisanal touch: steam.

The recipe had directed me to place an empty baking pan on the bottom rack to pre-heat so that I could fill it with boiling water as the bread went in. I had chosen a blue glass lasagna pan; I poured quickly, eager to get the oven closed before the steam escaped. Suddenly, the pan exploded with a tremendous bang. Fragments tumbled into the bottom of the oven and out onto the kitchen floor. Nevertheless, I was bound and determined to bake that bread, even if I could barely get the oven door to grind closed with all the shards in the hinge. I’m sure I tried to enjoy some of the hard, unleavened lump that was the fruit of my labors, but I have no memory of tasting it. Undeterred by the failure of that adventure, I’m proud to say that I continued my quest to bake a true sourdough loaf, and eventually became enough of an expert to advise others — and to console them in their times of trial.

And finally, from Teri Nestel we have another "first time" story:

My first experience baking bread was completely unexpected and unwanted. I was newly married and foolishly asked my sister-in-law what I could bring to Thanksgiving. To my terror Lori said, "You can bring the bread."

Because my mother-in-law is a fabulous bread baker and I assumed my three sisters-in-law were too, I thought nothing less than homemade bread would do.

I got out my Betty Crocker cookbook and carefully read the pages of instructions and recipes. I shopped for ingredients, turned out two loaves of Honey-Whole Wheat Bread and carefully packaged them for the trip to Lori's home.

The food was delicious and my bread was not a disaster. It was a little flat and dense — not enough kneading, not enough rising? Geri — when she heard it was my first effort — said she was impressed. I will love her forever. For all its flaws in appearance, it tasted good! And I was hooked.

That was over ten years ago. I have come a long way from those early days when baking a tube of refrigerator sweet rolls was worth writing home for. My favorite recipes include a buttery roll made with cornmeal and milk, fluffy rolls covered with poppy seeds, a honey mustard loaf, a braided loaf flavored with cardamom and crusted with coarse sugar, and Naan, middle-eastern flatbread that the neighborhood kids ask to take home. I still make my original Honey-Whole Wheat bread and it is still pretty good!

Again, thanks to everyone who participated in our contest.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | contest | local breads

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Breadtime Stories

I'm not the only one who has compared bread dough to a baby's bottom. Louise Lewis has drawn the same metaphor in this story :

If you have raised any children, or even babysat a lot, you probably understand my meaning in reference to bread baking!

My first real go at solo bread baking came in the first year I was raising my boys who were born 13 months apart.I had decided to stay at home for a few years with them, and while at home began trying all sorts of things that one can do when they have time on their hands. Yeah, right. But gardening and baking bread did become my pass times while the boys napped, and I fondly remember baking my first loaf of white bread, scalding the milk, and melting the shortening, using an old recipe I found in a cookbook. That hobby grew into a passion, and went further into a very unexpected career. One of my favorite references, while teaching others to bake bread was using the different degrees of a baby's bottom as an indicator of different types of bread and their readiness. "It should feel like a freshly powered babies butt while they are sleeping." "It should be smooth and elastic, like the skin on a babies bottom..." It really was amazing at times how easily beginners to the field understood and were able to use that reference to whip up a great loaf of bread. I think, bread baking just must bring out the "mom" in all of us!

Risa sent us a couple of stories, but we only have room here for one of them, a Thanksgiving Day tale:

A few years back, I was making Pumpkin Soft Yeast Rolls the day before Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving dinner. I put the dough ingredients into the bread machine and made sure it looked good before walking away. About 10 minutes later, I heard the machine making a real racket! When I went to check, the bread pan was shaking, the mixing blade was going crazy and then it stopped. Completely stopped. I tried to re-start it and it wouldn't. I had partially made dough. I put the dough in a bowl and used the electric hand mixer to finish the recipe.

My husband called me to see how things were going and I told him that the bread machine had died. It was a gift from my parents for my anniversary a couple of years earlier. It was one of those Dak Turbo IVs. The next morning I insisted on going to the mall, Sterns was having a sale on electric items. For $75 I found a Breadman TR444 and I was back in business.

Jay's daughter insists on "helping:"

My 3-year-old daughter likes to steal the raw bread dough. Just about every day she asks if she can help me "dump". She helps me put the bread dough together, dumping the ingredients one by one into the bowl, then says "Daddy, now you need to go like this", urging me to knead the dough. (I don't really trust the machine) Then she proceeds to steal dough by whatever means necessary. She tries anything that might work: telling me to look at something on the other side of the room, moving the stepstool to the other side (so I won't see) and downright shoving me out of the way. She usually settles for the bowl and paddle after a few purloined handfuls.

Michele was also moved to an act of poesy with this piece that she notes is suspiciously like "Twas The Night Before Christmas:"

Twas the week after our trip and all through our home
was the smell of bread baking, and it was almost done
I’d mixed it and kneaded and shaped it with care
In hopes that fresh Broetchen soon would be there

My husband was nestled, all snug in our bed
While visions of German breakfast danced in his head
And me in my apron, the cat on my lap
Had just settled down for a quick 5-minute nap

When from the stove there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my chair to see what was the matter
It was just the oven buzzer, I turned it off in a flash
Went to the oven, and saw my hopes dashed

The light of the oven, its slight yellow glow
Showed the luster of egg wash on the objects below
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But some sad looking rolls, just as I feared

They looked just like the last batch, I pulled them right quick
I knew in a moment, they would be just like bricks
More rapid than eagles, myself I did blame
I fumed and I complained and I called myself names

I’m hopeless, a moron! I said to the cat
I’m just making rolls, what could be easier than that?
To the garbage these go, outside by the wall
Now throw away, throw away, throw away all.

They didn’t rise well, (at least the bottoms weren’t black)
This bread baking business, would I ever get the knack?
So off to the Internet to view sights that I knew
Surely someone could help me with my new pursuit?

And then in a twinkling, I found a great site
With pictures and recipes to help with my plight
A Year in Bread was the name of this tome
Eureka! I shouted, I’d at last found my home

It was wonderfully thorough on each shining page
With techniques and hints for each breadmaking stage
My hopes were restored, my mission was back
I’d make Broetchen yet, you could bet on that!

I’m proud to say I can now make great bread
Thanks to the folks on the site I no longer dread
Experimenting with dough, I’ve learned how to do it right
My Broetchen are now tasty, thanks so much and Goodnight!

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | contest | local bread

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Being the Heartland

One of the local Knoxville stations has a series named, "The Heartland." As might be expected the brief spots are deeply folksy, full of plaid shirts and chewing tobacco, and hosted by a charming fellow with an East Tennessee accent (making an ET accent charming is a skill) and what used to be boyish good looks but are now avuncular good looks.

And you know what? He really is a nice guy with an abiding interest in this area's history and culture. He is absolutely genuine. Just like you and me and the others participating in some way in this blog. So I have few more stories for you, sent in by our fellow bakers. You don’t get to vote on who wins the story contest (we're too lazy and it's too hot to think about how we might accomplish that) but add your observations, thoughts, and reactions in the comment section.

As a Southerner, I have a near-instinctual affection for grits. From Judy Shealy:

I'm a Girl Raised In The South, as in GRITS! That's rural deep south, as in way out in the country.

I'm the youngest of three, and was my Daddy's little angel. My mother worked outside of the home, and when my older siblings married, I was alone a lot. You need to know, I had an aunt, uncle, and cousins that lived on both sides of us within hollering distance, so you gotta know I would get off the school bus with them whenever I had the chance. My Aunt Hazel and Uncle Bonnie had seven kids, so there was always homemade bread there after school, and it was so good! Usually just out of the oven, with lots of butter and homemade jam to spread on it. Now this was not just any old homemade bread, no sirreee, it had grits in it. The left over grits from breakfast made this a moist and beautiful loaf of bread. I have never had any bread like this outside of Lexington County, South Carolina unless I made it.

It's still my family's favorite. My fond memories of fellowship with my cousins over a loaf of fresh baked bread is still alive, I can smell it baking as I write, and hear the laughter of my cousins as we gathered around the table to break bread together. This was the beginning of my love of baking bread.

I don’t know how old Jane is, but this story has clearly had all the rough spots worn off over the years, leaving a perfectly smooth and shining gem of memory.

I remember the first time I ever made bread. I was 10 years old, and my mother told me what to do. She sat at the kitchen table and didn't lift a finger, just let me do all of the mixing and kneading and rolling and rising and baking. She gave very good instructions, and I have never forgotten what a properly kneaded bread dough feels like. There's nothing like it, that glossy, rubbery texture.

That loaf was perfect, and tasted wonderful, especially since I knew what went into it. That started a tradition in my family. Every time there is a family gathering, it's well known that Jane brings the bread. I am now the (un)official breadmaker in the family.

I'm older now, and my hands and arms aren't as strong as they used to be, so I rely on my well-beloved KitchenAid mixer to do the hard work, but there is nothing like homemade bread to lift the spirits and make the soul soar.

And melt butter. Real butter, not that nasty margarine stuff.

Am I the only person who set out to bake bread without a mentor? I wonder. And Wonder what I missed by relying on books. This from Tammy Kimbler:

My great grandmother, Fannie Elizabeth Kimbler, was a biscuit maker. She taught three generations of us how to make them, including my mother and me. If she was in charge of a meal, there would be biscuits. Her regular breakfast consisted of one biscuit, one egg and one piece of bacon. She lived to be 97.

When she was young in the early 1900s, her husband worked as a ranch hand in Oklahoma. My grandmother was the cook. Pregnant, with a baby on her hip and more around her feet, she would roll out big batches of biscuits for most meals on the ranch. Her biscuits were made with flour, lard or bacon fat and farm fresh milk. After cutting the biscuits and placing them in the pan, she would brush the tops with bacon drippings. She baked them in a wood stove. Her modern biscuit recipe barely varied, except for the electric stove and the homogenized milk.

Last week my daughter turned 1 year old. Her favorite toys in the kitchen are my biscuit cutters, particularly the old fashioned ones with the green and red wooden handles. This weekend my mother comes into town to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. And this weekend, a new generation will taste my great grandmother’s biscuits for the first time. Thanks Grandma.

Bread really is a human tie. And I need a biscuit just now — and some real butter and blackberry or strawberry jam.

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | local breads | contest

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Tales & Travails

Laura has posted her baked brick story at LGirl's Blog and Susan offers a story about a bread-loving cat at Wild Yeast.

Wan Bui has just recently started baking bread and shared her story with us:

Six month ago, I was alien to the baking world. I had no idea what is the difference between all purpose flour, bread flour and cake flour. The only thing I know is that each time I craved for good bread I would need to travel quite a distance to Carrefour (that's a French Supermarket), Market Place or Delifrance (a French eatery) to pick up few good loaves. I was born and raised in Vietnam, the place that according to Anthony Bourdain produces the best baguette outside of France. Married to a Singaporean, I moved to live in Singapore 10 years ago and although there are quite a few bakeries around, I hardly found anything that suits my taste.

It was at the 7 month of my pregnancy that I craved so badly for those French baguettes stuffed with plenty of sausage, pate and sweet-and-sour salad (the way they are served in Vietnam). I stared to search for bread making recipes from the internet, bought a new oven, find the way to local bakery supply shops and attempted to make a very first loaf of bread. Although heavily pregnant, I still stayed up late at night, tried out difference recipes. Success did not come easy. The biggest problem was weight and measurement. I am used to metric measurement and most of recipes out there are in cups and pounds. I did not have a mixer and did everything manually.

My first loaf was as hard as stone due to over kneading, too hot oven and probably wrong measurement of ingredients. However, I did not give up, keep on searching and found Susan's Foodie Farmgirl blog. I was amazed with the way she lived and managed her farm. I am sure it is much harder than working and raising my 3 little kids here. She is such an inspiration. I read her ten tips for making good bread over and over again and tried baking bread again. I used her tips with recipes from others who follow metric systems. Six months on, I now can bake decent loaves of bread and have moved onto buns, pita, pizza and biscuits. My kids not only love home-bake breads but also enjoy baking time when they can shape their own breads or biscuits.

Thank you so much for sharing your baking experience with us, guiding us and inspire us to be good baker. It would be even better if you could produce a little note to your every recipes stating your ¾ cup is equivalent to how many grams of flour or milliliters of water.

And Darby is a rappin' baker:

Making Bread, A Rap: "Rollin' (In the Dough)"

YO! I make bread cuz I like to knead
The dough in my hands doesn't make them bleed
I got a bunch of active yeast in the freezer
I got a bin of flour, a real crowd pleaser

Don't got much money, just a wad of tens
Don't need a Cadillac don't need a Benz
I got a secret weapon to make my endz

(Chorus)
I be rollin' (rollin') Rollin' (rollin) Rollin' in the dough…
It be risin' in my kitchen mighty high and mighty slow
Don't need no BLING to reprezent
Just my bowl, my hands and ingredienz

YO My husband likes to call me honey
But he'd rather squeeze it on his bun-ies
My kids reprezent making little dough snakes
The bread they eat, the crust they hate

I prefer my slice with jam and butter
My serrated knife is a superior cutter
Adding too much wheat germ will make you sputter

(Chorus)
I be rollin' (rollin') Rollin' (rollin) Rollin' in the dough…
It be risin' in my kitchen mighty high and mighty slow
Don't need no BLING to reprezent
Just my bowl, my hands and ingredienz

PROOF OUT, Homies!

Technorati: Food | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | contest

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Prizes! Awards! Gimmicks!

Today we're launching our first contest at A Year in Bread. As the regular readers know, we've been looking at recipes from Daniel Leader's new book, Local Breads: Sourdough and Whole-Grain Recipes from Europe's Best Artisan Bakers, for the past three weeks. The book is due to be released this month, but we already have a couple of signed copies in our flour-covered hands that we're going to give away over the next month.

One copy will go to a reader selected at random. If you're interested in participating in this contest, send an email to AYearInBread with your name and email address and we'll add you to the list. The subject line should be "Local Bread Contest."

The other contest is more challenging. We're asking for your favorite homemade bread story. This could be an egg (or flour) -on-your-face tale of failure, it could be a memory of bread made for a special occasion, it could be an unexpected success or even a long-sought-for success. Maybe it was how you learned to bake bread at your mother's side, or why you started baking bread. Whatever the specific event or events, we want to hear about them. Your entry should be no more than 250 words if you're sending to us to post (on your own blog, go for broke), and creativity counts. Clever poems, silly songs (just tell us what tune to sing them to), and good old-fashioned humor are all welcome.

If you have a blog, post your story there with a link back to this post, and send us an email at AYearInBread with the permalink. If you don't have a blog, just write up your story and send it to us and we'll post it here. All those participating in the story contest will automatically be included in the random drawing.

The contests will end on August 30th, and we'll announce the winners one week later.

Let the games begin!

Technorati: Food | recipe | baking | bread | artisanal | artisan | bread baking | local+breads | contest

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