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Serious question, did anyone else learn to bake from a church lady who ran her kitchen like a boot camp?
When I was 19 I got a job washing dishes at a little diner in Dubuque, and the head baker there was this 70 year old woman named Ruth who had zero patience for anything. First day she handed me a lump of dough and said if I couldn't feel when it was ready by hand then I had no business in her kitchen, and she made me knead that same batch for 45 minutes straight until my arms shook. She never used a timer for anything, just tapped the loaves with two fingers and listened, and if I asked how long to proof something she'd say 'until it's done, dummy.' I burned three trays of rolls in my first week because I kept opening the oven to peek, and she made me eat one in front of the whole crew as a lesson. These days I bake at home with a scale and a thermometer and my phone timer going, and honestly it works fine, but there's something missing when everything is measured to the gram. Last Sunday my 8 year old asked me how I know when bread is ready and I caught myself tapping the top and listening, just like Ruth did. So my question is, does anyone here still bake by feel instead of numbers, or did we all just hand it over to the timer?
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wesleyflores21d ago
Did you read that piece about how old bakers could tell proof by smell alone?
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