Working with Flour

The whole idea of making bread came from a reading, the crusty, stringy-yet-soft interior, chewy bread looked so easy to make in the youtube link, which was demonstrated by a famous baker in NYC. Never mind the temperature of fermentation, all you need to do is pour the ingredients into a bowl, wait for 12 hours, throw the mixture into a cast-iron pot for 30 minutes, viola, you have the crusty bread just like those in the shop.

I did my best to find the yeast in Albert Heijn, though not knowing a word of Dutch, I figured these little package sitting underneath the bakery ingredient section must be yeast. Hastily going home, I cannot wait to start my experiment. The commercial yeast did activate very quickly, I put the bowl filled with the mixture of yeast, flour and water next to my laptop, the heat coming out of the vent should encourage the little bateria to work harder. A couple hours later, you can see the dough start to grow, and the smell of fermenting goods come about (oh well, it smells like the over-ripen fruits). I went to bed with the worry thinking it is going to over grow but, hey, we should trust the recipe.

The resulting bread didn't look like those in the film, it actually tastes like the Chinese-style bun, 饅頭, more than a real bread. Because the crust is not really brown but the interior is pretty soft and tasty. I should really have the cast-iron pot and the commercial baking oven to make it work?

After the bread experiment, I am having a lot of fun of the remaining flour (why flour is done in the way you always have some left is beyound me). I tried the pancake, pasta, Chinese-style noodles and cookies. Except cookies, I had to consume all my results (cookies are for the victims in the office). I guess this is the problem if you have too much free time over weekend.