Baking Da Bread in the Bathroom

Pro2 Day 36: Baking Da Bread in the Bathroom

This week I decided to take two days of vacation from work so I could wrap up one class assignment before another class starts next week (it’s the other half of my dailies where I actually CREATE Virtual Reality Worlds, so stay tuned :wink:)

And what better way to start my first day of freedom then by baking bread!

I really wanted to get into baking bread because the idea of making 500 loaves of bread with $5 seemed like a very appealing option to me, but something about the way I was doing it seemed… wrong. I’m using a bread maker coupled with a simple recipe booklet, and all the recipes are essentially written in a dummy-proof fashion where even a literate kindergartner could set up the machine. Despite it’s simplicity, I felt… cheated. I had made bread with this machines loads of times previously, but there was no magic to it. I just followed some directions and got some bread. If someone asked me to make some bread without looking at the recipe, there is a flying :dolphin: chance I could even do it.

So I decided screw it, no rules.

The most basic recipe required four simple ingredients (in the following order):

• water
• flour
• salt
• yeast

I guesstimated all the portions based on the required ingredients for the biggest loaf, when I made my first mistake: I was making huge portions when I didn’t know what I was doing. Oops.

Second mistake: I woke up late and started to make bread around late morning, the same time my roommate had a very important meeting he was obviously ill-prepared for (I could tell by the vast number of ums in all his replies). It completely slipped my mind that the bread machine sounded like a twister when placed out in the open, so in my split decision thinking, I plugged the machine into a outlet in my bathroom, and just let it go for the next four hours. Strange place to bake, but sacrifices had to be made.

Third Mistake: I checked midway to see how the bread was progressing, and noticed that I had some sort of… bread soup… at the stage where the bread should have turned into dough. Hmm. Maybe I added too much water. BUT I would never learn unless I let this mistake flourish. And so I let it go.

Dear :dolphin:, this bread came out AWFUL. The outside baked fine, but the inside was some sort of really gross oatmeal texture, and it tasted like.. flour because I barely used any salt.

But despite all these shortcomings, I felt proud. Almost radiant even. I learned to test small, (quite literally) read the room, and acknowledge my shortcomings so the next go around will probably had an actual loaf-life substance. It was refreshing to allow myself to fail like this, and now I’m looking forward to taking this mindset elsewhere and see what emerges!

Also thank :dolphin: tonight was potluck night, or else I would have starved otherwise :sweat_smile:

@dragon @homeroom11

Also quick note: I have no idea how this is “French” bread. Maybe I’m just not cultured enough to understand :smirk: :