Morning Read

My starter is looking and smelling good this morning, but it will be another day or so before I can do anything with it.

This morning's experiment is banana nut bread. I realize that I will need a scale soon so I can weigh ingredients. I am not nearly good enough at guessing the correct amounts of flour and such just based on volumetric measurements.

It takes about half an hour, a food processor and 2 bowls (and a new loaf pan) to get the whole thing going. As it bakes for an hour, I read up on techniques.

The great thing about Alton's books is that they're science and technique-oriented. For example, the banana nut bread ingredients are mixed using the "Muffin Method", and that's all it says. The bread recipe I will try later on this weekend is mixed using the "Sponge Method Variantion". Everything is broken down into techniques that are applied on properly proportioned ingredients. It makes the recipes harder to follow for a novice, but once you learn the techniques and the concepts of the ingredients being used in the techniques, you end up with a great understanding of HOW baking works. I, of course, am not there yet.

The books are also well-peppered with cool science and food history. For example, I learned that before pasteurization, natural milk bacteria would sour milk (called "clabber") that could still be used, whereas today's non-baterialized milk just rots. I also think it's interesting because the brand of cornstarch I bought yesterday is called "Clabber Girl". Coincidence? Yes, probably.