BIG BAKES.

bread.
bread!
bread!!!
BREAD!!!
dudes,
i've been very attentively activated and getting along swimmingly
with my very active, well-fed, and attended-to sourdough starter.
in fact,
i've got a second starter going,
waiting for a friend to scoople it up and take it home to continue the tradition
of friendship and foodstuffs going hand in hand.
but in the meantime,
it's a LOT of leaven,
and as such, i've been baking up a storm these days.
uh-huh.
that's real.
and honestly, kids,
the outcome of these endeavors keeps steadily improving all the time.
i'm excited about bread-
every single loaf, every single day,
and that's where i think i really shine,
i don't get bored of things easily-
in fact,
my hyper-focused fixations only serve to accentuate the tiny little obsessive details
that make each loaf successively more expert.
i'm serious.
look at this crumb, neighbors:

word!!!
fresh baked and shoveled right into me and the cucch's faces.
that's how i do it.
i've fired up three loaves of loveliness since he got here,
and there's a few more on the way today and tomorrow, too
that tasty jaun looks like this on the outside:

i mean,
it looks good to me.
and the weirdest thing, neighbors?
it's average in every way,
at least, in regards to quantities of everything.
no excess water, a standard scoop of flour, a median-level blop of leaven.
it just went OFF in the right direction and couldn't be stopped.
i'm psyched.
also,
i tried out a batard,
those are pointy, and fat,
and i made sure it was both of those things.
a loose proof on a pan, open-faced and exposed
to form a dry skin on the outside helped a whole bunch...
it came out crusty as heck, and twice as tasty.
in fact,
we dominated it in a day:

WU-TANG!!!
i LOVE good BREAD.
*
i've been baking completely by feel from the jump-off,
and i think i've been troubleshooting with intuition as my guide
to make each batch a baby bit better,
factoring in the inconsistent. ambient environment
of this volatile and unpredictable Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
that's no joke.
check this out:

and this:

same difference, but not exactly.
more water, less water, more flour, more gluten,.
the differences are subtle,
but the results are consistently good,
and i guess that's what matters.
it's honestly a touchy subject.
as in- my hands touch the dough, they stretch it, fold it,
wrap it up and over and in on itself,
and set it back in the bowl,
seam DOWN, to trap all the air i can,
for forming up that irregular crumb that we all crave so hard.
dudes,
i even freaked it off with some fancy sh!t:

sprouted wheat/light rye/dark rye!!!
proofed the long way, in a long banneton,
for that fresh sliced flavor i savor for longer than most loaves would last.
good bread makes better people.
i'm hoping that self-improvement is evident as a byproduct of baking all the time.
it's ALL really happening, i just hope that it's making a
positive difference somewhere besides my tongue.
i guess time will tell;
never quiet, never soft.....