Someday I Won't Be Defensive
May. 27th, 2021 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taz_39Weekend time.
Woke up, started the dough before doing anything else.
Brioche dough has a lot more ingredients than what I've been making up until now.
Most of the bread recipes are one or two types of flour, salt, yeast, and water. Maybe a few add-ins like raisins or cheese.
Brioche is flour, milk, eggs, salt, sugar, yeast, and butter.
While the dough was resting I made coffee and breakfast: fluffy egg whites with basil from the garden, garlic salt and black pepper, on the last two pieces of my rye bread from last week (I slice it and freeze it to make it last longer). And another slice but with almond butter and jam. I really did like that rye bread, I want to make it again soon!
I finished eating about the time the dough was ready to be messed with. Because of all the rich ingredients it was sticky and wet. I didn't dare put it on the counter, instead kneading it right in the bowl. I don't know why more people don't do that, it makes far less mess, and you don't need to add as much flour to keep the dough from sticking to everything. It's a little more restrictive motion-wise, but if you don't have carpel tunnel or something that shouldn't be an issue. Anyway, kneaded the dough for what seemed like a long time, and eventually it seemed to gain some springiness although it was still way more loose than regular bread dough. I let it rest for about two hours while I cleaned up and went outside to bother the garden.
My plants are suffering pretty good right now. I'm very impatient for it to rain. My tomato is dead, I was hoping to get a cutting but no dice. Pretty much nothing is producing. My poor passion vine, which tried so hard to make all that fruit, ended up making empty husks because there just wasn't enough water to work with.
Here is a sampling of the types of fruits: totally empty with just ghosts of seeds inside, partially formed with dry-looking seeds and pulp, and the ONE good one that I have found, which looks fairly normal inside.
Yes, when I cut open one of the smallest fruits today, I was surprised to find this one that was "normal" inside and edible. It was sweet and tart, and felt like a little gift from my poor plant, who is trying so hard. There are about five fruits still on the vine, I will wait for them and see if they are any better. Too bad this wasn't the harvest I was hoping for, but I'm not a farmer, I don't have an irrigation system or hundreds of gallons of water to dish out when the rains don't come.
The milkweed is actually doing pretty well despite the heat, I mean it has "weed" in its name for a reason.
Here is one I got in a plant exchange. It's got beautiful tiny white flowers.
Here's the giant milkweed, also obtained in an exchange for a roselle seedling. When I brought it home it literally had only two leaves. It's doing quite well, although not entirely happy with the dry conditions.
One thing that is still doing well is my basil. It's big and bushy and doesn't seem to mind the heat at all. Crazy!
My Meyer lemon is clinging to two tiny baby lemons. It had five previously, but when I left the tree out in a heavy thunderstorm they were oversaturated and either knocked off or dropped by the tree. If I want these two to grow to maturity, I need to be more responsible about moving the tree as needed.
On the non-produce side of things, my sundew has made this ridiculously tall flower stalk nearly two feet above the actual plant.
At the tip of the stalk are tiny pink flower buds. How lovely!
That's about it for now. Nothing else is producing anything, it's too dry.
Back inside, I shaped my dough and set it to proof. I watched videos from two different people who made this exact recipe, and both said it took an extra hour to proof this dough, so I planned for that. During the proofing I did some cleaning, drove to Target for some groceries I'd forgotten, ate lunch, and wrote a letter to my grandparents. At some point I checked the dough and it "seemed" ready, though I'm a terrible judge of this apparently, so I shoved it in the oven where it stubbornly refused to rise any more.
Still, I think it turned out pretty well. Very slightly too dark, I could have taken it out a few minutes early, but that's hard to judge just from crust color.
All of my loaves, across multiple types of bread and recipes, have a more dense crumb near the bottom and larger holes near the top.
I've read that this can be a proofing issue or a shaping issue (can also result from overusing flower during shaping or kneading but I know this isn't the case). I've read that you should pop larger air bubbles while shaping, so next time I will do that, since it wasn't in my instruction book I hadn't been doing it. I also might not be letting it proof long enough, though this is hard for me to believe considering I had to let this particular bread proof for a whole extra hour.
But in the end, as long as the holes are not gigantic and as long as the bottom is not compacted and dense, this is really more of an aesthetic issue. The crumb is still light, the texture is good, I have nothing to complain about considering that every single one of these loaves is a first try.
Of all the different types of bread I've made--no-knead, focaccia, rustic, baguette, pizza, cinnamon roll, cheese, raisin, wheat, oat, rye, and now brioche--of all of these, I've only messed up two or three loaves so badly that I felt they should be redone. These include the baguettes, which came out weirdly like focaccia; a loaf of rustic white, which I baked at the wrong temperature like an idiot; and the brown sugar oat bread, in which I measured the oats dry instead of cooked, like an idiot. So two out of three of those were my own mistakes.
I'm not counting all the loaves I had to throw away BEFORE I got this book.
But even so, none of the bread I've made has been inedible, under- or overcooked, burned.
Is this a special skill that I'm exceptionally good at, no. Obviously not going to open a bakery over here.
But I'll admit to being pleased that I've been able to eat pretty much everything I've made.
Anyway, after that was dinner and steno class, then I went for a short walk as it was getting dark. I'd wanted to go to the gym but felt that 8:30pm was too late for that.
Thursday, I woke up to this from a coworker:
Being a very self-critical person, the first thing I wanted to do here was get defensive.
And I did, but I tried to be kind about it, because I think she was not trying to offend me but just trying to point out something that I do in every single social media post about my bread, which is self-criticize. I ALWAYS have a note about what I could have done better, what I should have done instead of this or that, or what change I made that I'm convinced is the cause of whatever errors I'm imagining.
This coworker does not bake bread, however, so what she doesn't understand and what I needed to explain is that there are aspects of a bread recipe that you CANNOT follow to the letter. These being the rise time and the proof time. Rise and proof times are dependent on MANY factors: the temperature of the liquids you add to the dough; the temperature of the dough as compared to room temperature; barometric pressure that day, humidity, altitude; the activity of the particular yeast cells you've added to the dough; the type of dough and what elements encourage or delay the yeast's action.
All of these things have a major effect on how long it takes bread to rise and proof. The recipes I'm following have deliberately vague instructions: "Cover for 1.5 to 2 hours or until doubled in size" or "Proof for 90 minutes or until dough looks like X". This is because the author knows that my dough may rise in as little as 30 minutes or as much as 3 hours depending on conditions where I live and in my house, and what type of yeast I have on hand. Baking bread is not the same as cooking dinner. You can't just set the oven and mix the ingredients and throw them in a loaf pan and know that in X minutes you'll have the same meatloaf every time without fail. If it's raining out it changes how the yeast behaves. If the house is warmer today by three degrees I need to change the temperature of my dough's water or milk to reflect that. If the dough doubles in size in 30 minutes instead of the usual hour because my yeast is energetic that day, then guess what, I end the proof 30 minutes early regardless what the recipe book says.
After explaining all of this to her, I followed up with, I realize that I have some note or other about what I need to change with every loaf. The reason is that I am constantly looking for ways to cut myself down. I was raised to think that nothing I do is good enough, and that's a very hard thing to overcome. But I will work on it, I told her. We'll see how that goes.
I started my day with cooking bacon for the quiche Lorraine I wanted to make for dinner. Jameson snicked some on his way to making a bowl of cereal. When that was done I ate breakfast, then did my breakfast prep for the week while starting a load of laundry. I mixed the dough for my quiche crust...I've never made pie crust before because I find flaky pastry very intimidating, but you've got to try sometime. During assembly I panicked a little because the dough was so dry, and added a tablespoon of water. Instant regret. The dough became sticky, which I know is Bad. I added more flour to compensate, but I think it was too late.
While the dough was chilling in the fridge I went to the gym. Only did the elliptical, next week I'll start weights again.
On the way home I stopped at Publix for a little rum because I want to make mint mojito popsicles before this heat kills my mint off.
Back home I rolled out the pie dough and shaped it into the pie pan, put it back to chill, and preheated the oven. It went in for a blind bake, and when that was done I made the quiche filling. Here's my first pie crust. Not bad, but it looks, uh, "rustic".
Here's the completed quiche. The pie crust was unfortunately kind of tough, but I knew that would probably be the case after my mistake with the water. Baking is hard. But it was still edible. Just not great. I hope Jameson will eat the leftovers.
After that I cleaned up and practiced steno a bit while Jameson gamed, then we watched a cooking show together. He's got a lot of rehearsals this week so I'm glad for this little time together.
So that was my weekend. Trying to buck myself up about bread. Feeling defensive about everything I do, from practicing to baking to exercise to when I freaking wake up in the morning. God, I wish I cared less about what other people think. I mean I'll still end up doing what I want, but I just don't want peoples' opinions constantly hovering over my head and around my ears like horseflies.
This coming week has nothing special in it. Just another week.
Woke up, started the dough before doing anything else.
Brioche dough has a lot more ingredients than what I've been making up until now.
Most of the bread recipes are one or two types of flour, salt, yeast, and water. Maybe a few add-ins like raisins or cheese.
Brioche is flour, milk, eggs, salt, sugar, yeast, and butter.
While the dough was resting I made coffee and breakfast: fluffy egg whites with basil from the garden, garlic salt and black pepper, on the last two pieces of my rye bread from last week (I slice it and freeze it to make it last longer). And another slice but with almond butter and jam. I really did like that rye bread, I want to make it again soon!
I finished eating about the time the dough was ready to be messed with. Because of all the rich ingredients it was sticky and wet. I didn't dare put it on the counter, instead kneading it right in the bowl. I don't know why more people don't do that, it makes far less mess, and you don't need to add as much flour to keep the dough from sticking to everything. It's a little more restrictive motion-wise, but if you don't have carpel tunnel or something that shouldn't be an issue. Anyway, kneaded the dough for what seemed like a long time, and eventually it seemed to gain some springiness although it was still way more loose than regular bread dough. I let it rest for about two hours while I cleaned up and went outside to bother the garden.
My plants are suffering pretty good right now. I'm very impatient for it to rain. My tomato is dead, I was hoping to get a cutting but no dice. Pretty much nothing is producing. My poor passion vine, which tried so hard to make all that fruit, ended up making empty husks because there just wasn't enough water to work with.
Here is a sampling of the types of fruits: totally empty with just ghosts of seeds inside, partially formed with dry-looking seeds and pulp, and the ONE good one that I have found, which looks fairly normal inside.
Yes, when I cut open one of the smallest fruits today, I was surprised to find this one that was "normal" inside and edible. It was sweet and tart, and felt like a little gift from my poor plant, who is trying so hard. There are about five fruits still on the vine, I will wait for them and see if they are any better. Too bad this wasn't the harvest I was hoping for, but I'm not a farmer, I don't have an irrigation system or hundreds of gallons of water to dish out when the rains don't come.
The milkweed is actually doing pretty well despite the heat, I mean it has "weed" in its name for a reason.
Here is one I got in a plant exchange. It's got beautiful tiny white flowers.
Here's the giant milkweed, also obtained in an exchange for a roselle seedling. When I brought it home it literally had only two leaves. It's doing quite well, although not entirely happy with the dry conditions.
One thing that is still doing well is my basil. It's big and bushy and doesn't seem to mind the heat at all. Crazy!
My Meyer lemon is clinging to two tiny baby lemons. It had five previously, but when I left the tree out in a heavy thunderstorm they were oversaturated and either knocked off or dropped by the tree. If I want these two to grow to maturity, I need to be more responsible about moving the tree as needed.
On the non-produce side of things, my sundew has made this ridiculously tall flower stalk nearly two feet above the actual plant.
At the tip of the stalk are tiny pink flower buds. How lovely!
That's about it for now. Nothing else is producing anything, it's too dry.
Back inside, I shaped my dough and set it to proof. I watched videos from two different people who made this exact recipe, and both said it took an extra hour to proof this dough, so I planned for that. During the proofing I did some cleaning, drove to Target for some groceries I'd forgotten, ate lunch, and wrote a letter to my grandparents. At some point I checked the dough and it "seemed" ready, though I'm a terrible judge of this apparently, so I shoved it in the oven where it stubbornly refused to rise any more.
Still, I think it turned out pretty well. Very slightly too dark, I could have taken it out a few minutes early, but that's hard to judge just from crust color.
All of my loaves, across multiple types of bread and recipes, have a more dense crumb near the bottom and larger holes near the top.
I've read that this can be a proofing issue or a shaping issue (can also result from overusing flower during shaping or kneading but I know this isn't the case). I've read that you should pop larger air bubbles while shaping, so next time I will do that, since it wasn't in my instruction book I hadn't been doing it. I also might not be letting it proof long enough, though this is hard for me to believe considering I had to let this particular bread proof for a whole extra hour.
But in the end, as long as the holes are not gigantic and as long as the bottom is not compacted and dense, this is really more of an aesthetic issue. The crumb is still light, the texture is good, I have nothing to complain about considering that every single one of these loaves is a first try.
Of all the different types of bread I've made--no-knead, focaccia, rustic, baguette, pizza, cinnamon roll, cheese, raisin, wheat, oat, rye, and now brioche--of all of these, I've only messed up two or three loaves so badly that I felt they should be redone. These include the baguettes, which came out weirdly like focaccia; a loaf of rustic white, which I baked at the wrong temperature like an idiot; and the brown sugar oat bread, in which I measured the oats dry instead of cooked, like an idiot. So two out of three of those were my own mistakes.
I'm not counting all the loaves I had to throw away BEFORE I got this book.
But even so, none of the bread I've made has been inedible, under- or overcooked, burned.
Is this a special skill that I'm exceptionally good at, no. Obviously not going to open a bakery over here.
But I'll admit to being pleased that I've been able to eat pretty much everything I've made.
Anyway, after that was dinner and steno class, then I went for a short walk as it was getting dark. I'd wanted to go to the gym but felt that 8:30pm was too late for that.
Thursday, I woke up to this from a coworker:
Being a very self-critical person, the first thing I wanted to do here was get defensive.
And I did, but I tried to be kind about it, because I think she was not trying to offend me but just trying to point out something that I do in every single social media post about my bread, which is self-criticize. I ALWAYS have a note about what I could have done better, what I should have done instead of this or that, or what change I made that I'm convinced is the cause of whatever errors I'm imagining.
This coworker does not bake bread, however, so what she doesn't understand and what I needed to explain is that there are aspects of a bread recipe that you CANNOT follow to the letter. These being the rise time and the proof time. Rise and proof times are dependent on MANY factors: the temperature of the liquids you add to the dough; the temperature of the dough as compared to room temperature; barometric pressure that day, humidity, altitude; the activity of the particular yeast cells you've added to the dough; the type of dough and what elements encourage or delay the yeast's action.
All of these things have a major effect on how long it takes bread to rise and proof. The recipes I'm following have deliberately vague instructions: "Cover for 1.5 to 2 hours or until doubled in size" or "Proof for 90 minutes or until dough looks like X". This is because the author knows that my dough may rise in as little as 30 minutes or as much as 3 hours depending on conditions where I live and in my house, and what type of yeast I have on hand. Baking bread is not the same as cooking dinner. You can't just set the oven and mix the ingredients and throw them in a loaf pan and know that in X minutes you'll have the same meatloaf every time without fail. If it's raining out it changes how the yeast behaves. If the house is warmer today by three degrees I need to change the temperature of my dough's water or milk to reflect that. If the dough doubles in size in 30 minutes instead of the usual hour because my yeast is energetic that day, then guess what, I end the proof 30 minutes early regardless what the recipe book says.
After explaining all of this to her, I followed up with, I realize that I have some note or other about what I need to change with every loaf. The reason is that I am constantly looking for ways to cut myself down. I was raised to think that nothing I do is good enough, and that's a very hard thing to overcome. But I will work on it, I told her. We'll see how that goes.
I started my day with cooking bacon for the quiche Lorraine I wanted to make for dinner. Jameson snicked some on his way to making a bowl of cereal. When that was done I ate breakfast, then did my breakfast prep for the week while starting a load of laundry. I mixed the dough for my quiche crust...I've never made pie crust before because I find flaky pastry very intimidating, but you've got to try sometime. During assembly I panicked a little because the dough was so dry, and added a tablespoon of water. Instant regret. The dough became sticky, which I know is Bad. I added more flour to compensate, but I think it was too late.
While the dough was chilling in the fridge I went to the gym. Only did the elliptical, next week I'll start weights again.
On the way home I stopped at Publix for a little rum because I want to make mint mojito popsicles before this heat kills my mint off.
Back home I rolled out the pie dough and shaped it into the pie pan, put it back to chill, and preheated the oven. It went in for a blind bake, and when that was done I made the quiche filling. Here's my first pie crust. Not bad, but it looks, uh, "rustic".
Here's the completed quiche. The pie crust was unfortunately kind of tough, but I knew that would probably be the case after my mistake with the water. Baking is hard. But it was still edible. Just not great. I hope Jameson will eat the leftovers.
After that I cleaned up and practiced steno a bit while Jameson gamed, then we watched a cooking show together. He's got a lot of rehearsals this week so I'm glad for this little time together.
So that was my weekend. Trying to buck myself up about bread. Feeling defensive about everything I do, from practicing to baking to exercise to when I freaking wake up in the morning. God, I wish I cared less about what other people think. I mean I'll still end up doing what I want, but I just don't want peoples' opinions constantly hovering over my head and around my ears like horseflies.
This coming week has nothing special in it. Just another week.
