Commentary and bread

[mrissa]

I'm sorry, folks: I'm disabling "anonymous" comments. I've deleted a number of anonymous spam comments this morning, and I just don't have time to keep doing it. There are at least three of you who have commented without lj accounts but signed your names, and I still want to hear from you when you have stuff to say -- I just don't have the time to sort through poker spam every two minutes or less (I timed it).

I will note that lj accounts are still free, so if you're one of those people, you could sign up for one without doing a friendslist or anything that might be more of a time sink. Or you can e-mail me with commentary -- that's always welcome.

Bleh. Stupid spammers. Again: genuine comments welcome, but I had to put a stop to the comment spam as much as I was able, for time management purposes.

In other news, I have often described baking as the anti-writing for me, for balance. But sometimes it has a few things in common. Why was the dough for the same recipe of bread with the same brands and mostly the same packages of ingredients better after one minute of knead this morning than after five minutes of knead a week ago today? More eager yeasties? This is like when one 3,000 word short story takes an afternoon and another takes a month. I'll take it, but I don't understand it.

Comments

[jebbypal]

I know, I know, rhetorical. But at least for me on the bread, I find it all depends on indoor humidity. My bread machine recipes turn out perfectly in spring and fall, slightly tough in the summer unless I place the bread machine near my window a/c, and I have to add about a half of cup of extra water to the machine when using it in the winter w/ the dry dry winter air combined with wonderful forced air heat.

of course, if you knead by hand, no clue because I've always had too small of a kitchen to attempt.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how much space you need to knead -- for me, getting the bread machine was a luxury when we had more kitchen space, and I still (obviously) don't mostly use it, only when I'm in a rush.

The hand-knead is good because you can add water or flour or whatever by feel in realtime, instead of by trial and error on previous loaves. But it does take more work.

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Temperature. Humidity. Phase of the moon. Sunspot activity. Bread is voodoo.

[jenett]

I knead in a big stainless steel mixing bowl sitting on the floor (largely because I'm too short to knead comfortably on most kitchen counters, plus I discovered the clean-up is much easier that way.)

Incidentally, when I saw Elise yesterday, she raved and raved over the rosemary rolls. I am looking forward to trying the recipe sometime soon.

Bread

[galaxus.livejournal.com]

I have a great deal of respect for anyone who can make bread from scratch. I for one cannot; but I can make a mean pizza dough.

I've heard that bread machines are more trouble than they are worth - what's your opinion on this?

[callunav.livejournal.com]

It's weird. I wonder how you ended up a target for spammers.

That sucks, anyhow, and I don't blame you for disabling anonymous under the circumstances. (Not that I would ever blame anyone for making whatever restrictions they felt a need for in their own journals. I suppose I meant, I have anonymous comments enabled, but under those circumstances, I'd probably disable them, too. I've finally stopped feeling intense loathing for spam in my e-mail, but that's about my limit.)

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

I first read "banking" not baking. And it made sense to me that it would be the anti-writing; one with letters, one with numbers, creativity versus logic and all that...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Yeasts, writers, cats, wives...anything involving living creatures will have idiosynchracies. Nature of the beasts, I think.

Sorry about the spaminators. That sucks.

Spammers

[galaxus.livejournal.com]

You are right - it does suck. Unfortunately it seems that the problem is getting worse and worse; I hate to see what happens if this is left unchecked. At least we have an option here of blocking it here on LiveJournal. (I'm a new user so I'm glad to see that this is the case). My email server at work will require a solution that is going to cost us a lot of money, but soon I don't think we will have a choice.

I NEVER buy anything from an unsolicited offer, but that doesn't stop these pests. It's really out of control.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Always good to get rave reviews! Glad they were a right thing.

I often (though not always) knead in large mixing bowls as well. Sometimes there is nothing like heaving the entire large hunk of bread dough at the countertop with all my strength, but cleanup, as you say, is an important consideration.

Re: Bread

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you want out of them, in my opinion. You can get a fresh, credible loaf of bread out of them. If you want to tweak ingredients, you can probably even get outstanding results. When I'm looking for outstanding results, I hand-knead and bake, but the physicality of it is pretty important to me. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have fresh bread ready whenever you want it.

I wouldn't say they're trouble, really. Storage, sure, and expense. But mine isn't very fiddly.