Look, I played with your heart in letting you think I would maintain this blog throughout the year. And I’m sorry I failed you. Again. But I’m feeling better about some things. I’m back to writing on the side—true writing, not blog writing (sorry to blog writers; this is real writing). So I think I feel ~okay~ enough to get back into this. And maybe dial it down with the need to try and tell you about everything going on with the world that I’m interested in. Maybe.

So let’s start with bread. And Brad! True to my word, I have been making bread for my husband’s lunch every week. I don’t do it every Sunday, but it does get done. There was only one week I didn’t do it, and that is because I was on family vacation for two weeks while he stayed home to work. Sorry for him.

Anyways, I’ve tried a few different sandwich loaf recipes. Now I’m making a Subway-style Italian loaf. So good. At some point I want to make ciabatta. I think that would be good.

For the upcoming holidays, though, I have set myself up to bake sourdough loaves for everyone. Now, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve made sourdough loaves. Because it got to be too much bread for the both of us (insane, I know. Too much bread? never heard of it.) So I stopped making the sourdough loaves, and wow, that was a muscle that needed to be worked.

I threw away 3 loaves before I ended up with these gorgeous two.

Please don’t ask for pictures of the bad ones. I’ll tell you what went wrong. Or at least what I believe went wrong. I for sure know the last two were overproofed. They went slack and liquidy, and no amount of added flour and handling was going to fix it. I should’ve turned them into focaccia instead of forcing them into loaves. Please, if you decide to bulk ferment in your oven with the light on, do not do it for long periods of time or don’t do it at all if you don’t know the temperature. IT IS WARMER THAN YOU THINK!

For the first loaf, I think it was too hydrated, and I’m just not confident in dealing with that. Also, like I said, I had not been baking sourdough loaves consistently, so Brad could’ve been sluggish… Think of it like your first pancake. It was about the same in flatness. Except super stodgy.

Oh well, let’s hope these two are as pretty on the inside as they are on the outside because they are going far away from me, and it’s rude to cut into people’s gifts. While I wait, I have two new doughs that are in the middle of stretch and folds and I hope they will also turn out better. I definitely have a better feel for the dough as I remember what I’m supposed to be looking for. Feeling for? You understand. If not, I’m working on typing up a recipe for the curry raisin for some friends, and you’re in luck because I’m going to share it here. For all 22 of you (I think one of them is me).

So TTFN my fellow friends. I will chat with you soon!

XOXO, gossip girl