It’s not a big thing, especially considering all the culinary adventures I’ve had, but up until 7pm this evening at no point in my life had I ever attempted to bake bread. Those two mini-loaves on the right are my first ever attempt and not only do they look like bread they actually taste like bread too!
As a child I was fascinated by how my mother would mix the dough and kneed it. Then the magic started – the dough would rise. Then she’d bake it and we’d have bread. My mother made bread, wonderful smelling soft bread. Most people had to buy bread, but my mother could make it. To my child’s brain that was very impressive.
This probably explains why I’ve been entirely happy to undertake some ludicrously complex and technical culinary challenges but to date not bread baking. I was scared. I was scared that I might not be able to do it and that if it didn’t work it would ruin the memory of that smell. It would ruin part of my childhood.
But it did work, and actually to me it’s quite a big thing.
Well done, I make bread a lot and the magic is still there for me too, you walk away and come back 40 minutes later to a bowl with more than double the contents you had before, and the yeasty aroma. It’s wonderful.