Wordloaf is no longer being published on Substack. The old posts remain here for now, but if you want to subscribe or leave comments that will be seen by me, please sign up here:

WORDLOAF

If you are already a subscriber to Wordloaf, and haven’t seen new emails, check your spam folders. You already have an account there, and you do not need to set one up. To login for the first time, go to newsletter.wordloaf.org and look for this in the upper-right corner:

Click it, enter your email, wait for the link, and that’s it.

See you there!

—Andrew

March 17, 2025 is Wordloaf’s fifth birthday. And while I’m too busy right now working on my book to mark the milestone in any significant way, this birthday is a little bittersweet, because after today, Wordloaf will no longer be hosted on Substack, the platform it was launched on, and will be moving over to Ghost in the next week or so. (The URL—newsletter.wordloaf.org—will remain the same. If you want to subscribe to the newsletter after 3/6/26, be sure to do it there, or you won’t receive anything!!)

Despite the move, Wordloaf will be the same as it ever was, and you won’t have to do anything to remain a part of it. Your subscriptions—paid or otherwise—will transfer over seamlessly once the migration is complete, and all of the content will move with it (aside from the comments, alas). Sometime in the next week or so, you’ll receive the first Ghost post, and it will carry on just as it has up until now.

When Wordloaf began, I was a big fan of Substack—it was simple and intuitive to use, had a clean look, and worked exactly as an email newsletter should. And just a few months after I sent out my first post here, I was selected as a Substack Fellow, which provided me a $25k advance on future earnings, without which I would never have risked quitting my day-job to pursue a full-time gig as a solo breadhead. I’ll be forever grateful for that (I can’t imagine I’d have landed a book deal without it either). I’ve had only excellent interactions with the Substack team over the last five years, and bear no ill-will to any of them. But it’s time for Wordloaf to move on, for a host of reasons.

For starters, I don’t care to remain within the confines of the “walled garden” that Substack is bent on creating, where “Substack” subsumes categories that already exist in the world at large—newsletter, podcast, post, live video, etc. As Anil Dash puts it in his post “Don’t Call It a Substack”:

We constrain our imaginations when we subordinate our creations to names owned by fascist tycoons. Imagine the author of a book telling people to "read my Amazon". A great director trying to promote their film by saying "click on my Max". That's how much they've pickled your brain when you refer to your own work and your own voice within the context of their walled garden. There is no such thing as "my Substack", there is only your writing, and a forever fight against the world of pure enshittification.

Wordloaf is just an email newsletter about bread, not a “Substack.”

Moreover, Substack’s “Nazi Problem”—something I and many others wrote about more than two years ago—has not gone away. Many of the same bad actors continue peddling dangerous and hateful information—and making a decent living doing it—here, and I don’t really want to have my own work associated with that, even just a little. I know that no platform is perfect, and that there are fashy, vile people using Ghost, Beehiiv, or any other newsletter host, but here’s what’s different about Substack: they prop up and promote some of these voices, whether because they agree with them, or simply because they make them lots and lots of money.

For example:

By the by, that’s the same Richard Hanania who recently argued on Bari Weiss’ Free Press that the Nazi salutes made by Musk, Bannon, and others on national platforms are nothing more than childish trolling, not “sincere Nazism”:

That said, even the crudest trolls have a message. With the recent spate of stiff-armed salutes, what we are observing is, in most cases, not sincere Nazism but an oppositional culture that, like a rebel band that keeps wearing fatigues after victory, has failed to realize it's no longer in the opposition.

Speaking of which, this is how Substack feels about the publication that featured that piece:

We view The Free Press as an ideal partner for this initiative because of its longstanding presence on Substack, which extends back to its founding in early 2021, and because of its commitment to pursuing high-integrity journalism. The Free Press is old school in the best way, with meticulous editorial standards that it upholds through in-depth reporting, fact-checking, editing, original photography, and more. The Free Press, like Substack, is also dedicated to a business model based on subscriptions.

Like I said, I don’t really want Wordloaf associated with that sort of “high-integrity journalism.”

But what ultimately forced me to make this move now is that I realized that I’ve spent far too much time over the past two years thinking about leaving here—wondering when and if things were improving or getting worse, or whether moving would be a good decision or not. I don’t really know the answer to the latter question, but I know that I’m ready to not have to dwell on it anymore.

Substack is unique among newsletter platforms—it does not charge a fee for writers, no matter how large or small their audiences. It only takes a 10% cut of any revenue they might generate, which makes it “free” to use. Most other newsletter hosts charge a monthly fee instead, based upon subscriber count. I’m in a fortunate position: I have a solid base of paying subscribers, so I can easily cover those fees (and in truth, I stand to save money, because at Ghost they work out to a quarter of Substack’s 10% tithe).

I recognize this puts those with audiences but not (m)any paying subscribers between a rock and a hard place: Stay on Substack and contribute to all that it is, good and bad, or leave and lose money setting up shop elsewhere. It’s an impossible situation, and I wish more of Substacks’ competitors understood this and offered inexpensive solutions for those who are only beginning to build their audiences.

If you are a writer I follow who cannot afford to—or does not want to, for any reason—leave Substack, I will continue to read, subscribe to, and share your work, wholeheartedly and without reservation, just like before. (I plan to stay on Notes, at least for the time being, and will ping you there if and when I link to your work.) And I will follow you elsewhere should you decide to make the move yourself. I hope you’ll continue to do the same with mine.

As Marisa Kabas, one of the founders of the ‘Substackers Against Nazis’ campaign, put it recently:

There is no such thing as a perfect place on the internet. But it’s possible to avoid the ones that aren’t even pretending to try to be better. The best time to leave Substack was a long time ago. The second best time is now.

—Andrew

Further reading:

• Casey Newton: Why Platformer is leaving Substack

• Ryan Broderick: It's time to leave Substack

• Marisa Kabas: Substack is at it again

• John Gruber: Regarding—and, Well, Against—Substack

• Shane Burley: How Deep Does Substack’s Far-Right Problem Run, Really?

• Ed Zitron: A Continual Christmas

The Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain, is a lite one this week, for reasons. I do have one item, which is this clip from possibly my favorite television show, Bob’s Burgers:

Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

Last week, my friend shared a detailed, beautiful essay on the history and joys of Boston brown bread, one of my favorite classic New England foods:

My Cup of Tea

Boston Brown Bread

“Our bread, to be sure, was the black compound of rye and Indian which the economy of Massachusetts then made the common form, because it was the result of what could be most easily raised on her nard and stony soil; but I can inform all whom it may concern that rye and Indian bread smoking hot, on a cold winter morning, together with savoury sausages, …

Read more

2 years ago · 4 likes · Elisabet Juan Roca

I’ve been making Boston brown bread since I first developed a recipe for it early on in my tenure at ATK. For those who don’t know it, Boston brown bread is, despite the name, really more of a not-too-sweet steamed pudding rather than a bread, made from more-or-less equal parts whole-rye, whole-wheat, and cornmeal, along with molasses and milk (or buttermilk). As Eli details, the earliest versions of it were fermented (using barm, the yeasty raft floating on the top of beer barrels), and baked freeform as a hearth loaf.

But the version most New Englanders know and love is leavened with baking soda (which reacts with the acidic molasses and buttermilk) and steamed in closed containers—metal pudding molds or repurposed Chock full O’Nuts coffee cans—in a water bath. It starts off as more of a thick batter than a dough, and the high hydration and wet, slow cooking method leaves it with a dense, moist, cake-like texture, though one with a nubbly, grainy quality to it, owing to the branny flours used. It’s traditionally eaten alongside another New England BBB—Boston baked beans—but is equally good simply toasted (or griddled) until hot and crisp, topped with a thick pat of butter.

Eli and I met up a few weeks back to talk and taste Boston brown bread at Cambridge’s HiRise Bread Company, one of the few bakeries in New England that make the bread regularly. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any on the shelves that day, but I brought some of my own with me for her to sample and later photograph for her story.

She was eventually able to get some of HiRise’s BBB and tried it alongside mine and the one that can be found in supermarkets in the Northeast, made by Portland, Maine’s B&M Foods. Here’s how she describes mine, relative to the others:

His recipe also includes raisins and it’s the most complex of the three versions in my opinion. It has a certain sweetness but the predominant flavor is the rye, without it being too overpowering. It has reminiscences of the breads you would find in Germany or Scandinavia: robust. But also, a bit grainy from the corn, moist from the butter, complex from the sourdough and sweet from the raisins and the molasses. A delicious bite.

My recipe has evolved since the ATK version, but the primary change is that about a third of the flour in it is fermented, in the form of sourdough discard. As I have mentioned before, my main goal for sourdough discard recipes is to use as much of the stuff as possible in one fell swoop, and this recipe fits the bill, since it calls for about a cup of the stuff. Not only does using discard—or a freshly-fermented levain if you don’t have enough on hand—tenderize the some of the bran in the flours, it gives the bread another layer of flavor. (But really, who cares? What matters most is that it gets that stuff out of my fridge.) Because lots of the liquid that would be in the recipe is already in the discard, I make up for the lack of milk solids by adding nonfat dry milk powder; if you don’t have it, you can use milk or buttermilk in place of the water to restore some of them.

It’s been tested using any type of discard: white flour, whole-wheat, whole-rye, or even a combination. The most important thing to keep in mind is that, along with the cornmeal, you need to choose the other flour you use in the batter based on what you already have, so that you end up with a combination of all three flours. (In other words, if your discard is white flour or whole-wheat based, use rye. If it is rye-based, use whole-wheat.) It also works with a discard of any hydration, since there is plenty of water in it either way.

Not all Boston brown breads contain butter, but mine does, because it enhances the cakey texture and adds a welcome richness. I recently doubled the amount of butter to 24%, which makes it quite rich, though you can use half that much if you want to keep it a bit more austere.

Raisins or currants are a common addition to Boston brown bread, but they are optional here. They soften so much during baking that they practically blend into the bread and lack the “cooked raisin” texture that some people don’t like, so I do recommend including them, even if you are skeptical.

Like HiRise, I prefer to bake my Boston brown bread at a low temperature (300˚F/150˚C), rather than steam it. It really doesn’t change the texture at all, except on the top crust, which ends up a pleasantly crisp—the rest of the bread still “steams” within the container—and it is a whole lot easier to do.

It’s made in cans like most brown breads, but instead of larger coffee cans, I use two 28-ounce tomato cans with their tops (but not their bottoms) removed. Look for a couple of BPA-free cans of tomatoes at the supermarket and make some pizza or pasta sauce to procure them. Or bake it as a single, rectangular loaf in a 9x4x4-inch Pullman pan instead.

—Andrew

Sourdough (Discard) Boston Brown Bread

makes: two ~500g can breads (or one ~1-kilo pan bread)

bread class: quick bread

loaf type: pan

mixing type: hand

specialty equipment needed: two BPA-free clean 28-ounce tomato cans, tops removed, or a 9x4x4-inch Pullman pan

minimum time frame: ~2 hours

Notes:

• Some of the flour from the recipe is coming from the sourdough discard, so you’ll need to adjust the recipe accordingly:

  • If your discard is wheat-flour based (white or whole-wheat), use whole-rye in the final dough.

  • If it is rye-based, use whole-wheat.

  • It works best with a whole-grain discard, because the traditional recipe uses only whole-grain flour, but a white flour discard will work nicely too.

• Boston brown bread is typically made with white cornmeal, but any finely-ground cornmeal will work here.

• If you do not have 255g sourdough discard on hand, you can make it ahead of time by combining 127g whole-wheat flour, 127g water, and 10g starter in a container and letting it sit for 12–15 hours at room temperature. If not using right away, store in the fridge until needed.

• If your discard is of a lower hydration than 100%, don’t sweat it, it shouldn’t make a noticeable difference.

• You can use 253g milk or buttermilk in place of the water and milk powder, if desired.

• Avoid blackstrap molasses if possible, it is much too bitter.

• This recipe contains a lot of butter, which I like. If you want to make it a little more healthful (and still very nice), reduce it by half, to 45g.

• The raisins soften and blend into the bread, texture-wise, but can be left out if desired.

OVERALL FORMULA

whole-wheat flour 35%

whole-rye flour 35%

fine cornmeal 30%

water 94%

molasses 35%

butter 24% (see notes)

non-fat dry milk powder 10%

baking soda 2%

salt 0.75%

raisins (optional) 20%

prefermented flour 35%

DOUGH

128g whole-rye or whole-wheat flour (see notes)

110g fine cornmeal

37g nonfat dry milk powder (see notes)

7g (1-1/2 teaspoons) baking soda

3g (1/2 teaspoon fine) salt

216g water

255g 100%-hydration sourdough discard (see notes)

128g molasses (see notes)

90g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

73g raisins (optional)

1. Set an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 300˚F (150˚C). Grease the inside of two BPA-free 28-ounce cans (or one 9- by 4- by 4-inch Pullman pan), place on a rimmed baking sheet, and set aside.

2. Whisk the rye or whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, milk powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the raisins, if using, and toss to combine. Whisk the sourdough discard, water, molasses, and melted butter together in a second large bowl. Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and fold with a spatula until combined and no dry flour remains. Immediately scoop the batter into the prepared pan(s) and set the baking sheet in the oven.

3. Bake until the internal temperature is between 190˚F and 200˚F (88–93˚C), or a tester inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, 75 to 90 minutes.

4. Transfer the pan(s) to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Invert onto the rack, gently shake the cans to release the loaves, flip right side up, and then let cool completely, about 1 hour. Slice and serve. (Or wrap tightly in foil and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain.

Pineapple express

For Bon Appetit, Margaret Eby, who just published a wonderful little book about feeding yourself when you cannot be arsed to cook, You Gotta Eat—shared a Southern classic sandwich that is the pantry equivalent of one of my personal faves, the tomato-and-mayo:

Not only is it actually delicious—I swear—the pineapple mayonnaise sandwich is a thing in Alabama, where I grew up. Like most instances when someone decided to put something between two slices of bread and call it a sandwich, its origins are murky. We have a collection of certain facts. There is a small town in Alabama called Pine Apple (two words). Pineapple was first profitably canned by James Dole in 1903, and by the 1930s canned pineapple had caught on nationwide. Fresh pineapple not being one of the native crops in the Deep South, we can reasonably infer that some combination of this new convenience, plus the noted Southern tradition of trying everything with mayonnaise, led to the creation of said sandwich. Plus, it’s cheap, filling, and, yes, tasty.

Another Ank acolyte

Also for BA, wrote about how the acquisition of an Ankarsrum Assistent has transformed his bread baking:

But those laborious days are behind me now that I have the Ankarsrum Assistent mixer on my counter. The Swedish-made Assistent has been around in various forms since the 1930s and has gained traction in the US recently as more people (like me) become invested in at-home bread making. Its first trademark feature—a large 7.4-quart capacity bowl that can handle five kilograms of dough—is what allowed me to quit hand mixing. Its second—a roller-style mixing arm—is what makes it ideal for bread and pastadoughs. The most common stand mixers, including the ever-popular KitchenAid mixers, use what’s known as “planetary” movement, where the mixing attachment—a dough hook in the case of bread baking—spins on a head that orbits around inside of a stationary bowl. Ankarsrum’s Assistent, instead, spins the bowl while a vertical roller mixes and kneads, and a separate dough knife scrapes ingredients from the side of the bowl toward the center.

He also discovered that it is equally useful for making (and rolling out) pasta dough!

Doggy bread dough

I’ve been on a John Thorne kick over here (again), and I (re)discovered this the other day, on the differences between bread people and pastry people (from Simple Cooking, p. 92):

Just as there are dog lovers and cat lovers, there are bread and pastry makers. These things respond so differently to even loving hands that they pull at opposite temperaments entirely. Doggy bread dough exults in pummeling, contact, and warmth, and does its tricks almost unbidden, so eager to share affection. Pie dough, conversely, catlike, wants love, too, but from a coolly respectful hand and in short, sweet doses; only if you get it to its liking will it deign respond.

Pie makers think bread work too easy; bread makers just hate pie dough. I'm a dog person, myself, and my only advice on pastry-making is to approach it cautiously and give it time to itself. Otherwise, please turn to a pastry person for your fine tuning.

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

This is the second essay I am sharing from ATK’s When Southern Women Cook today—find the first one here—all about the garlicky sausage-filled, buttery Texas-Czech pastry klobásníky, and why they are not kolaches, another (excellent, buttery) Texas-Czech pastry.

Dawn is a fourth-generation Texas Czech and is at work on the cookbook Kolach Culture: Cooking in Texas Czech Kitchens, for the University of Texas Press, about which I hope to chat with her for Wordloaf someday.

—Andrew

Klobásníky not Kolaches

Driving east from my home in Austin to my birthplace of Houston along US Route 77 and Interstate 10, there are almost as many ­billboards advertising kolaches and klobásníky as there are Texas bluebonnets blooming in the spring. However, in the stretches between those billboards and in the surrounding counties are small towns where Texas Czechs, including my family, are home baking a tastier, more traditional version of the pastries.

Whether meat market barbecue, hoppy beer, smoked sausages, or kolaches, foods of Texas’s Czech community have been of particular interest in food media. But it is the misunderstood pastry known as a klobásník in Czech (usually misnamed a sausage kolache by ­commercial bakeries) that may be the current darling.

Certainly thousands of klobásníky (the plural of klobásník) are sold daily across Texas and increasingly across the United States at mom-and-pop shops and national (but Texas-based) chains such as the Kolache Factory and Shipley Do-Nuts. Hungry commuters buy them to eat in the car and they’re a familiar sight at office meetings, Saturday morning sports practices, and Sunday morning church gatherings. In Austin, there are at least two dozen bakeries serving them. Some are “artisanal” bakeries and some are chain establishments, but their offerings, with fillings such as barbecued brisket or sausage-egg-cheese, cannot be called traditional.

The now-closed Village Bakery, which opened in 1952 in the overwhelmingly Czech town of West, Texas, claimed to have invented the klobásník and even trademarked the name, but there are mentions in Czech-language newspapers of the pastry being made by home cooks that predate the bakery by decades. My great-aunts will tell you they remember taking klobásníky out to the fields to eat on breaks from picking cotton on their family farms well before the bakery opened.

A traditional klobásník, like those portable lunches made by my great-grandmother 80 years ago, wraps soft, yeasty, milk-and-butter-enriched double-risen dough around smoky, garlicky homemade or Texas Czech meat market–made sausage and is liberally brushed with butter during the baking process.

The dough absorbs the rich flavor of the butter from the outside and the smoky aroma and fatty juiciness of the sausage from the inside in a way that distinguishes the finished product from mass­produced doughnut shop “sausage kolaches.” Smoked and fresh sausages are a hallmark of Czech cuisine. Immigrants to Texas brought recipes for a variety of sausages, and their descendants still make them, using every part of a pig in different combinations.

Some versions include barley or rice; some use head meat or offal such as heart and liver. But the sausage (“klobase” in Czech) inextricably associated with klobásníky is the most basic: generally a 1-pound, horseshoe-shaped link of coarsely ground pork meat (or pork and beef) flavored simply with salt, garlic, pepper, and sometimes paprika.

A meticulous cook “peels” the casing off the sausage before slicing it into pieces for klobásníky. And Texas cooks do not skimp on butter, buttering the pan, buttering the rising dough balls, and also buttering the finished pastries when they come out of the oven.

Most often, Texas Czechs would eat klobásníky at a family or community gathering, either baking the pastries themselves or picking up several dozen at a local bakery for an extended family Christmas party, funeral reception, or heritage group meeting.

For such events, klobásníky might be one offering in a lunch spread, served alongside foods such as chicken soup with homemade, fine-cut noodles; pimento cheese and chicken salad sandwiches; pickles; and sliced summer sausage.

Typical recipes in community cookbooks make a batch of no less than six dozen klobásníky, ensuring plenty for historically large Texas Czech families. As successive generations in the community have fewer children, smaller families might make one pan of klobásníky on the weekend, wrap each klobásník individually in freezer paper or plastic wrap, and store them in a zipper-lock bag in the freezer for their kids to grab and microwave for breakfast.

This recipe makes one dozen but can easily be multiplied for parties or holidays.

by Dawn Orsak, fourth-generation Texas Czech and author of the forthcoming cookbook Kolach Culture: Cooking in Texas Czech Kitchens.

Klobásníky

(Courtesy of Dawn Orsak and America's Test Kitchen. All rights reserved.)

Makes 12 rolls


Total Time: 1½ hours, plus 1½ to 2¼ hours rising

These are Dawn Orsak’s real-deal klobásníky (Texas Czech–style sausage rolls), not to be confused with a savory kolache. One envelope of instant yeast is 2-¼ teaspoons. You can find Prasek’s brand Smoked Pork and Beef Sausage at H-E-B grocery stores in Texas or online at Praseks.com. If you can’t find Prasek’s sausage, you can substitute a 14- or 16-ounce ring link of kielbasa. Removing the casing in step 3 will work best with chilled sausage (though you needn’t remove the casing if you’re using kielbasa).

½ cup whole milk

4 tablespoons salted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces, plus 2 tablespoons melted, divided

1 large egg plus 1 large yolk

2 tablespoons sugar

2-¼ teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast

½ teaspoon table salt

2-¼ cups (11-¼ ounces) all-purpose flour

1 (1-pound) ring link Prasek’s Smoked Pork and Beef Sausage, chilled

1. Using stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, mix milk, softened butter, egg and yolk, sugar, yeast, and salt on medium speed until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute (some small lumps of butter will remain). Fit stand mixer with dough hook. Add flour and mix on low speed until no dry flour remains, about 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as needed. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is smooth and elastic and clears sides of bowl but sticks to bottom, about 3 minutes.

2. Transfer dough to lightly greased counter and knead by hand to form smooth, round ball, about 30 seconds. Place dough seam side down in lightly greased large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, 1 to 1-½ hours.

3. Meanwhile, cut sausage into 2 equal lengths. Cut each length into 3 equal pieces, each about 3 inches long. Slice each piece in half lengthwise to form 12 equal pieces. Using paring knife, peel casing from sausage pieces; discard casing and set sausage aside.

4. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 13 by 9-inch baking pan with 2 teaspoons melted butter. Transfer dough to lightly greased counter, divide into 12 equal pieces (about 1-⅔ ounces each), and cover loosely with plastic. Working with 1 piece of dough at a time (keep remaining pieces covered), form dough into rough ball. Place ball seam side down on counter, then loosely cup dough with your palm and roll in circles against counter to form smooth, tight ball. Cover with plastic.

5. Working with 1 dough ball at a time, place ball seam side up on counter. Using your fingertips, press ball into 4 by 5-inch rectangle. Place 1 piece of sausage cut side up in center of dough, with long side of sausage parallel to long side of rectangle. Bring edges of dough up and around sausage and pinch seams to seal, completely encasing sausage. Arrange shaped klobásníky seam side down in 3 rows of four in prepared pan. Brush klobásníky with 2 teaspoons melted butter, cover with plastic, and let rise again until puffy, 30 to 45 minutes.

6. Bake until tops of klobásníky are light golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Brush with remaining 2 teaspoons melted butter and let cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

To Make Ahead Klobásníky can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or frozen. To freeze, wrap individual klobásníkyin plastic wrap and freeze in zipper-lock bag for up to 3 months; thaw before serving or reheating. To reheat, wrap individual klobásníky in paper towels and microwave for about 30 seconds.

Excerpted from When Southern Women Cook, by America’s Test Kitchen, Toni-Tipton Martin, and Morgan Bolling. Shared with permission from America’s Test Kitchen, all rights reserved.

America’s Test Kitchen recently published When Southern Women Cook, a tribute to the vast contributions that Southern women have made to American foodways. It was created and edited by Toni-Tipton Martin and my friend Morgan Bolling, both of whom are from the South themselves. The 500-plus-page tome contains more than 300 recipes of Southern dishes of all kinds (including many breads and baked goods), polished and foolproof-ed in ATK’s usual careful style, and presented in a gorgeous, vibrant package.

Unlike most previous ATK books, crafted nearly entirely in-house, When Southern Women Cook includes the contributions of many from outside ATK’s walls—it contains essays and recipes from seventy Southern women authors and chefs, among them (who served as consulting historian for the project), Reem Assil, , , Doris Hô Kane, , Shane Mitchell, , , and Kayla Stewart. It lets Southern women cooks speak for themselves, appropriate for a book about such an important subject, making it a new sort of book for the brand, one that forefronts and celebrates the cooking taking place beyond its walls. When Southern Women Cook is a special book, one I’d recommend to anyone interested in Southern history and foodways (or just damn good cooking alone), right alongside Anne Byrn’s Baking in the American South.

I asked Morgan if I could share some excerpts from it, including this essay from Keia on Southern women cottage bakers, along with another (and a recipe) from Dawn Orsak on the Texas-Czech pastry klobásníky, which I’ll send out separately.

Also: I have a copy of this book to give away to a randomly-selected Wordloaf paid subscriber. If you want in on it, leave a comment below with your favorite Southern cookbook, chef, or dish (bonus points if they are from a female author or chef). As always: Please pay attention to your notifications, so I can let you know if you are a winner! I had to redo the last drawing because I couldn’t get the initial winner to respond.

—Andrew

On Our Own Terms: How Cottage Bakers Have Reclaimed and Transformed the Domestic Space

Grace Garay sets her alarm anywhere between midnight and 2 a.m. That’s when she rises to bake for customers who will line up in front of her Orlando home on Saturday to pick up their much­anticipated pastry orders from Nomad Bakehouse. Garay lives in the periwinkle-colored house with her mother, Miriam Zaldivar McCullough, and operates Nomad, her cottage baking business, from the same address. In a typical weekend, Nomad Bakehouse produces 450–500 pastries and 80 loaves of naturally leavened sourdough bread from the micro-bakery space. By morning, Garay has filled speed racks with delectables made with whole-grain flours and local produce, flaky layers of laminated pastry, tall biscuits, golden brioche buns, and cookies the size of your head.

Garay is a first-generation American with Puerto Rican and Honduran roots. Her mother came to the United States in the 1980s, traversing Mexico in search of a better life. Common to the immigrant experience, Garay’s mother worked tirelessly to provide for her family without the luxury of choosing her own path. She simply worked. That ethic suffused Garay’s mindset with an ideal she’s carried into her own life.

“We’re women and we’re capable of doing anything we need to do,” she says. On visits to Honduras, Garay saw women setting makeshift tables on their patios and calling it a restaurant, rolling up their sleeves to get the work done while creating community, a natural extension of Honduran culture. Though Garay was classically trained with years of experience in high-volume bakeries, restaurants, and hotels all around the United States (hence, the nomad in Nomad Bakehouse), the industry wore on her. Its people and systems amounted to abusive work environments, thankless long hours, and a bottom line focus that lodged in her work-weary body. She sought a better way. Inspired by a connection to whole-grain flours and spurred by necessity, Garay carved a new path.

“Cottage allows you to build something entirely different,” she says. In its earliest references, cottage referred to “a variety of commercial activity or trade, which is carried out partly or wholly in people’s homes.”

From the Nomad website: “When the Covid Pandemic threatened our food supply, I was presented with the opportunity to feed my community on my own terms and from within my own home, with ingredients I respected.”

In Atlanta, Georgia, the line for Osono Bread snakes across the concrete lot minutes after the Grant Park Farmers Market’s opening bell. Beneath the market tent are Betsy Gonzales and her sister, Taylor Gonzales, displaying wooden planks lined with loaves of naturally leavened bread—Pullman loaves and multigrain loaves, milk bread and oat porridge boules. In the pastry case are cardamom buns and crumb cakes and Osono’s legendary brioche doughnuts in flavors such as ube, crème brûlée, pistachio, and horchata.

Betsy Gonzales is a first-generation American. Her mother, Eldi, emigrated from Guatemala in the 1980s, a single mother to two young girls. Gonzales attributes her entrepreneurial spirit to her mother, having witnessed the importance of autonomy and independence from a young age. “When you are a first generation child, you know what your parents are doing, and the sacrifices they make,” says Gonzales.

When baking came to the fore, Gonzales couldn’t afford the traditional culinary route, something not uncommon for women of color, who often face barriers to launching businesses and equitable access to economic opportunity. Gonzales, instead of going through formal schooling, took a job at Little Tart Bakeshop in Atlanta before creating her own immersion program: Using the powers of Instagram, she reached out to bakers in Europe and asked if she could travel to learn from them. What she found in Europe were small teams of one to three people producing high-quality, naturally leavened bread and pastries at scale. She returned home ready to bake, planting the seeds of Osono from her home oven while working her Little Tart bakery job. Slowly, she outfitted her home with professional equipment. By 2018, she developed a bread subscription service. A year later, she established a relationship with local farmer Brent Hall of Freewheel Farm to sell directly to consumers, and in 2020, when she was furloughed from her job due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Osono Bread launched into markets full-time, garnering press and accolades across city papers and beyond.

For Gonzales, cottage baking fosters introspection: What values matter to me? How can I share with my community? More than that, the bakery is a space to reclaim her power and autonomy as a brown, queer woman: “My experience has always been something I have to prove. Engaging in this model has allowed me to play in this space. I do everything a typical baker does, I’m just not zoned commercial. As a first-generation American, why wouldn’t I want to do this?”

Across the long arc of history are the twin threads of nourishment and survival woven together by women’s work in the kitchen. For centuries, the domestic space, and the food and care work performed there, was the heart of a woman’s world, and a place that was historically invisible and devalued, even as it sustained whole villages and fueled political movements.

For immigrant women, this space is a means of survival and resourcefulness when economic and social barriers muddy the prescribed path. So many find a way, whether it’s making injera from home, selling tamales out of the back of a truck, or dishing out plates from the garage or backyard; the list goes on, and it is work women have been doing ever since the first fire was stoked.

In cottage bakeries all over the South, bakers are changing the paradigm of what it means to work from home, bringing the artisanal into the domestic space, bucking industry norms, and reclaiming their power and connection to local food systems. If ever there was a space worth reimagining, the kitchen is it.

By Keia Mastrianni, writer, cookbook author, baker, and photographer based in western North Carolina.

Excerpted from When Southern Women Cook, by America’s Test Kitchen, Toni-Tipton Martin, and Morgan Bolling. Shared with permission from America’s Test Kitchen, all rights reserved.

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain.

KojiCon 2025: Next week!

The annual all-things-Koji online conference, KojiCon, starts next Monday, featuring a wide variety of events from great speakers, including several friends of Wordloaf. you can find the entire schedule and sign up here.

Improving your day

My pal recently visited Kanto Bakery, a Filipino-Korean Bakery in Cambridge, England and had her day improved. Perhaps just reading about it will improve yours (paywalled, but why are you not a subscriber to Topographic Kitchens yet?):

Their food is not unprepossessing. For their Korean Garlic Bread, soft rolls are baked, cut to unfold like the petals of a chrysanthemum, filled with piped cream cheese, dipped into melted garlic and chive butter, then baked a little longer until their crust is golden. You should see them when they're pulled from the oven. They resemble little erupting volcanoes. Fluffy pandesal are filled with a sticky layer of coconut caramel or stained purple from ube. Their Basque cheesecake is made with ube too. Ensaymadas are showered with shaggily grated Edam cheese and buttercream.

Mandu Rolls made with puff pastry get the dumpling treatment, filled with minced pork, cabbage, and tofu, then brushed with soy, sweet, vinegar sauce. Dumpy little matcha brioche are filled with munggo (mung bean) paste and matcha mascarpone cream then dusted with kinako (roasted soybean). A Gochujang Tuna Melt is made with pandesal shokupan bread as light as air and filled with ingredients that, after toasting, are bright as sunset. Fat little pandesals are filled with pimiento cheese and ham, creamy roasted sesame egg mayo and kimchi butter, or avocado, cucumber, radish and wasabi cream cheese. Cinnamon buns are coiled and filled with rivulets of vivid kalamansi curd.

Tales From Topographic Kitchens

A Day That Improved

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2 years ago · 5 likes · 4 comments · Nic Miller

Rarebit run

Eater’s Amy McCarthy wants you to eat (more) Welsh rarebit:

If you haven’t tried Welsh rarebit, once known as “Welsh rabbit,” it might be because you’re put off by its objectively weird name. No one actually knows where that name came from — the most common theory is that it was originally a rude insult to Welsh people, insinuating that they were too stupid or poor to tell the difference between an actual rabbit and the plate of cheese-sauce-topped toast, popular at pubs across the United Kingdom. But despite its complicated etymological origins, Welsh rarebit is perhaps one of the most under-appreciated — and delicious — foods on the planet…

Although it (unfortunately) isn’t exactly common on restaurant menus, making Welsh rarebit at home is really easy. It starts with a cheesy, stout-infused sauce. You make a quick roux of flour and butter, toasting the two together until the mixture smells slightly nutty. Then, you thin out the roux with a can of stout until it combines into a smooth, thick sauce. From there, you whisk a ton of mature cheddar — I like a blend of Irish, English, and extra-sharp cheddars — into the mixture until it’s thick and gooey. Once the mixture is complete, a few heavy dashes of Worcestershire sauce and a scoop of Colman’s punchy English mustard are added to cut through all that rich cheese and beer.

Avocado smørrebrød forever

Danes have responded to the Orange Menace’s threat to invade Greenland by offering to buy California instead:

California would become “New Denmark,” according to the campaign’s website, while its world-famous theme park Disneyland would be rebranded as “Hans Christian Andersenland”.

Other benefits of the Scandinavian nation purchasing the state include “tech dominance” and “avocado on toast forever,” according to the petition.

“Have you ever looked at a map and thought, ‘You know what Denmark needs? More sunshine, palm trees, and roller skates,’” the website reads. “Well, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make that dream a reality.”

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

I plan to celebrate the completion of the Breaducation manuscript later this year with a “no-bread party,” a feast at which there will be zero bread products of any kind served.

One of the items I definitely plan to include is my pal Brien’s chocolate sheet cake, a recipe that has become my go-to cake for many occasions, and the only chocolate cake I reach for anymore, because it is dead easy to make—it’s a no-mixer, dump-and-stir recipe using mostly pantry ingredients—and 100% perfect: rich, moist, and deeply chocolatey, despite containing little more than a scoop of cocoa powder.

And I’m not the only one who has come to love this recipe as much as I: After a friend tried it, she volunteered to make dozens of them for not one but two weddings, and it was a big hit at both. And it’s sure to be a big hit for Valentine’s Day this year, should you have someone special to bake for (even yourself).

The version here is my adaptation of Posie’s, though the differences are minor. First, I scaled it up by 1/3, so it makes a slightly taller cake. And secondly, I added notes about substituting yogurt for the buttermilk and even the sour cream, something I do all the time without negative consequences. (I don’t keep sour cream or buttermilk on hand, but I always have homemade whole-milk Greek yogurt, so I can make this cake without a trip to the supermarket, in an emergency.) You can find Posie’s original version here, should you want to make that one instead.

One last thing: I have successfully made and frozen this cake, and I think the texture— perfect to begin with—is actually made more perfect after freezing and thawing it, something I believe is true for many cakes; it seems to deepen the fudgy, pudding-like quality it already has. Be sure to wrap it very tightly, and don’t leave it in the freezer for more than a week or two. To thaw it, let it sit at room temperature, still wrapped, for at least 12 hours.

I asked Posie to write a little something about her own feelings on this cake, which are similar to mine.

—Andrew

Posie Brien: As an eater, a very good chocolate cake is not hard to find. But as a baker, I’ve found the challenge to be incredibly daunting. Most of the recipes recommended to me—by friends or fellow bakers or cookbooks I trust—yield a batter so thin and liquidy it sloshes around the bowl. Those recipes result in cakes that are fine. Serviceable. The crumb is moist and the cake itself tender, but the chocolate flavor always seems muted: a shadow of what I expect from a truly excellent chocolate cake. 

Disheartened, I turned to other templates. I made chocolate butter cakes. Flourless chocolate cakes. Chocolate cake with hot coffee and chocolate cake without it. Malted chocolate cake. 

To spare you from the trials, I’ll present you with my forever go-to chocolate cake. It’s not an intense, rich, need-to-sit-down-after-one-bite affair but nor is it tepidly chocolate in flavor. The crumb is dreamy: the sort of tender and dare I say damp interior I dream of in a sheet cake. Picture this if you will: You finish your slice, and a few scattered crumbs remain. You press the tines of your fork into them and they all smoosh together into a chocolate-y mass. That is what we’re after. Nothing dry, but also not so damp that the cake lacks structure. 

This is a cake you can spin into endless variations. I love it with a pillowy whipped chocolate frosting, but take it any direction: malted frosting, thick chocolate ganache, ermine frosting, vanilla buttercream topped with sprinkles, swoops of Swiss meringue frosting flavored with raspberry or caramel or rum! 

I bake it as a sheet cake because it’s simple and fast, but the sour cream gives it enough structure that you can easily bake it as a layer cake. Or leave it unadorned with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar or a dollop of whipped cream and call it breakfast.

Posie Brien's Forever Go-to Chocolate Sheet Cake

Makes one 9” x 13” cake

• There should be enough frosting here to cover the entire cake modestly, or the top very generously.

• Andrew makes this with whole-milk Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream (along with Greek yogurt and water for the buttermilk), and he thinks it comes out great that way.

• You can also use this to make two 9” round cakes
  
  

CAKE

2/3 cup (152g) sour cream (or Greek yogurt)

1-1/3 cups (320g) buttermilk (or 127g Greek yogurt and 194g water)

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2/3 cup (158g) very strong brewed coffee

2/3 cup (150g) vegetable oil

2-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 cups (560g) all-purpose flour

3-1/2 cups (700g) granulated sugar

2/3 cup (60g) cocoa powder, preferably Dutch processed

2/3 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 plus 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

FROSTING

1 cup (170g) semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups (230g) confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

pinch of salt

1. CAKE: Preheat the oven to 350˚F (175˚C). Grease (or line with parchment) a 9” x 13” pan.

2. Whisk together the sour cream, buttermilk (or yogurt and water), eggs, coffee, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45-55 minutes, or until the cake springs back lightly when you press the surface. Remove from the oven and let cool while you make the frosting.

6. FROSTING: Melt the chocolate chips (in the microwave or over a double boiler), then set aside to cool slightly.

7. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter with the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and salt until fluffy. Add the melted chocolate and beat until well-combined and fluffy.

8. Frost the top of the cake and add lots of sprinkles, if you’re into that. Or not. It’s your cake; do your thing.

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain.

Bread, not broken

Siranush Sargsyan writes in The Armenian Weekly about a group of women displaced from Artsakh in 2023 who are rebuilding their lives in Yerevan by baking the breads of their lost home:

Following the nearly 10 months of starvation, siege and forced displacement in 2023, Kristin Balayan, the head of Milagri Foundation, has been working with this community in Yerevan. For the last four months, the women have been learning how to bake and sell a variety of healthy breads using different flours, including gluten-free options, and infusing them with unique flavors.

Choosing to bake bread was not an accident. “For us, the idea of bread was especially important during the blockade when there was a shortage of [it]. When every kind of food finished but there was still bread, people did not break. But when the bread ran out, people broke,” Balayan told the Weekly.

This program is implemented in partnership with the Embassy of the Netherlands in Armenia and focuses on human rights and gender equality, particularly aimed at engaging mothers of children with developmental challenges, who are considered doubly vulnerable, as noted by Larisa Harutyunyan, the political and economic affairs officer at the embassy.

Harutyunyan added that they initially chose to bake sourdough bread to ensure the high quality of the food. The use of sourdough reflects a commitment to health and nutrition, allowing participants to create wholesome products that not only nourish but also connect them to their cultural roots.

From matzoh to tortilla

recently shared an essay about flour tortillas, in which she reveals that flour tortillas may be an evolution of the matzoh recipes brought to Mexico by Portuguese Jews fleeing Spain in the 16th Century:

Bread is identity: it carries the most intrinsic sense of home, of childhood memories, of nurture; it defines entire nations and provides a sense of nationality or of the collective self. Think of Matzah, Naan, Pitta, Tortillas, all intrinsically linked to a country’s gastronomic heritage.

It is not surprising that when one looks into the evolution of bread through history, so much of it, in whatever shape or form it is presented, is linked to the evolution of civilization itself. But what happens when evolution results in fusions or new varieties? - Is that sense of national identity diluted?

Take the flour tortilla, deliciously soft, almost velvety from the addition of lard, butter or vegetable fat to the wheat flour and water. With about 500 years of history behind it, it is a great example of how this humble, flat and originally unleavened bread has transcended borders and boundaries and has become a staple not only in Northern Mexico and in the United States but all over the world.

When the Spanish Conquistadores arrived to Mexican shores, they found the Aztecs had been making corn ‘tlaxcalli’ for about 3.5 thousand years; these ‘tlaxcalli’, or as they were ‘baptised’ there after as ‘tortillas’, were boasting a pedigree as far back as Olmec’s time (c 1200 BC to c 400 BC). The term tortilla was given by the Spanish who had mistakenly identified the ‘tlaxcalli’ as a ‘torta’, which was a sort of Spanish cake or ‘small cake’. Soon after their arrival, the conquistadores introduced wheat into Mexico. It is believed that wheat was grown for the first time by a servant of the conquistador Hernan Cortez after finding a few grains mixed in a sack of rice. By 1534, only thirteen years after the conquest, Mexico was producing important amounts of wheat. The first official mill was licensed in 1525 somewhere in what is now Mexico City. They lost no time implementing systems to grow it in the new world. Most of the production of wheat during the XVI century was destined to make bread and communion wafers.

When Portuguese Jews coming from Spain established themselves in the Northwest of the country in the later part of the XVI century, they attempted to make Matzah, an unleavened, flatbread central to their passover rituals, by using the coarse, broken down wheat available in the region, mixed with water. It is believed that this bread became the father of the modern flour tortilla, which now graces tables all over the world.

Flour tortillas were also a political and socio-economical choice. In the centre of Mexico, native people worshiped ‘Chicomecoatl’ the goddess of maize and nature; the Aztecs believed that corn was a gift from the gods, so it was ingrained in their rituals and believes; so naturally, corn tortillas were the only choice for them. The newcomers, however, saw corn as a peasant food, clearly identifying the consumer as ‘uncivilised’, while wheat, on the other hand, was a sign of good breeding, Spanish heritage and good standing in society. The choice of grain on your table mattered, as it determined who you were and where you came from.

The Taco Files

The Flour Tortilla:

Bread is identity: it carries the most intrinsic sense of home, of childhood memories, of nurture; it defines entire nations and provides a sense of nationality or of the collective self. Think of Matzah, Naan, Pitta, Tortillas, all intrinsically linked to a country’s gastronomic heritage…

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2 years ago · 10 likes · 2 comments · Lily Ramirez-Foran

Yes, Kueh

Two of my favorite bakers and cookbook authors—Dan Lepard and Christopher Tan—recently met to chat about Christopher’s latest book, NerdBaker 2: Tales from the Yeast Indies, one that I have gushed about here already:

This book was birthed from a few strongly interconnected key motivations. Firstly it was a COVID pandemic baby, conceived from not being able to do much but stay at home and bake, fuelled by all the inspiration and encouragement I soaked up while seeing how bakers connected and shared with each other online and through other remote means.

I wanted “Tales from the Yeast Indies” overall to celebrate the ways in which Asian baking cultures have developed their own idioms and have diverged from European or American baking, even though those have seeded Asian baking in the past. Having connected with many of my overseas readers through Instagram during the pandemic, I wanted to introduce them to what may be entirely new paradigms for those unfamiliar with how we bake over here. At the same time, I also wanted to set down in detail for readers in Singapore and Malaysia recipes for our very traditional and beloved local items – like the soft loaves we use for kaya toast, and really proper restaurant-style char siew bao, and the deep-fried breads – which I have never seen fully explained in English before.

Another catalyst was watching the first season of The Great Australian Bake Off on which you were a judge, Dan – I noticed that the Aussie contestants seemed to be much more au fait with Asian and Middle Eastern baking mores and techniques than the British contestants on the original UK series. And then of course seeing wonderful books by authors like Bryan Ford (with “New World Sourdough”) and Abi Balingit (with “Mayumu – Filipino American Desserts Remixed”) proves that there is a hunger among readers to learn about global baking traditions. I think that really curious and intrepid bakers (for whom “Tales From The Yeast Indies” is named!) will always want to vault over map boundaries.

The interview is part of a new series that Dan is doing on his blog that is well worth following. Be sure to check out his excellent new podcast, No Set Menu, where this interview may also appear soon.

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

Over the years I have tested a wide variety of approaches to levain-building for sourdough breads. Most of them have worked well, but I think I have finally landed on a universal set of methods that both works reliably (for me) and builds some flexibility into the process. This is something that is especially important for home bakers, who—unlike pros—aren’t working with bread all day (or all night) long.

Most of us have to sleep some of the time—usually between the hours of 10pm and 7am. This leaves essentially two times during the day you’d want a levain to ready for use in a dough—early in the day or in the afternoon. Here’s why:

For a same-day, all-ambient proofed dough (i.e., one that doesn’t get retarded), you ideally want to start the final dough early in the day, so that it is ready to bake by the afternoon or early evening.

On the other hand, if you are retarding the dough overnight, then you probably want the dough ready to shape by the evening. I don’t like to retard most of my breads much longer than 12 hours, since I find they lose volume when I do, so I aim to shape them by 7pm or so. That way I can bake them first thing in the morning, 12 to 15 hours later.

Given those parameters, there are three basic approaches I turn to: an overnight mature levain, a two-stage mature levain, or, occasionally, a two-stage young levain. (I won’t talk about the amount of prefermented flour in the levains here, since I’ve found these methods work regardless.)

The overnight mature (stiff) levain

In order to have a levain that is ready for use first thing in the morning, I will build it the evening before. I’ll use either white or whole-grain flour (whole-wheat or whole-rye). The choice of flour matters less here, though if the final dough contains a whole-grain flour, I’ll usually use it in the levain too.

I’ll typically build this as a stiff levain, at 70% hydration for white flour, or 75% for whole-grain flours. (Other bakers like to build their stiff levains at much lower hydrations—50% or so—but I have found 70-75% to work just as well, while still leaving the levain easy-to-mix.)

The reason I do so is to restrain enzymatic activity, to prevent the levain from overproofing before I get to it, and to give me a little more flexibility with when I can use it. Liquid levains mature and degrade quite quickly; reducing the hydration slows them down, giving a wider window of use once mature. I’ve found that a stiff levain has an extra 2 to 4 hours of stability, which means I don’t have to stress about getting to it right away in the morning.

I’ll use cool water in the levain (~70˚F/21˚C) and proof it at cool room temperature (also ~70˚F/21˚C). And I’ll typically use 2–5% starter as the seed, less in the summer and more in the winter. I will usually try to push the fermentation of this levain as far as possible, so it has maximal proofing power. When it is ready to go, it will have about doubled in volume and will have leveled off (but not collapsed).

Obviously, because the levain is of a low hydration, I’ll make sure to adjust the hydration of the final dough to make up for whatever is missing (assuming that the formula normally calls for a 100%-hydration liquid levain).

The two-stage mature (liquid) levain

If instead I need a levain ready in the middle of the day, I will build it in two stages, with the same amount of flour in each stage. And if I happen to need a liquid levain for some reason (to promote extensibility in the final dough, most of the time), then I’ll use this approach too.

Here’s what I mean: Say a formula calls for 200g of liquid levain—containing 100g flour and 100g water. The night before I need it, I’ll mix a stiff levain like before, but with half the total flour—50g—along with 38g water (75% hydration), and ~2g starter; I’ll usually mix this in a jar large enough to hold all of the final levain, so I don’t need to use multiple containers.

The next morning I’ll add 50g flour and 62g hot (~105˚F/40˚C) water to the jar, which will bring its hydration to 100% and its temperature up to about 85˚F. I’ll then proof it at 82–85˚F for about four hours, by which time it should be about tripled in volume and ready to use. (It’ll remain stable for use for another hour or so, but if I cannot use it right away, I’ll move it to a cooler spot to slow it down until I can, just to keep it from overproofing.) Proofing warm and building it into a liquid levain will ensure that it moves quickly, so it will be ready for use when I need it.

There’s one way I change things up with this approach: If the final dough is going to be retarded (as many are), I will avoid using rye flour in any stage of the levain. This is because rye is much more enzymatically-active than wheat, and that can mean loss of volume while the loaves sit in the fridge, since protease enzymes will chew up the gluten and amylases will continue to degrade the starches.

[Edit 2/7/25: Since there have been some questions about rye, levains, and retarding, I wanted to add a little more. This does not mean you cannot use rye in your final doughs if you are retarding them (I do it all the time). The idea is that you want to minimize it where possible, by not using it in the levain.]

The one bonus of this approach is that I can make a relatively small levain the night before I might want to bake; if for some reason I don’t end up making a loaf the next day, I won’t have wasted much flour.

The two-stage young (liquid) levain

Occasionally I will use a young levain, meaning one that has a lot of yeast in it, but a relatively low amount of lactic acid bacteria. This will boost yeast activity in the final dough and minimize sourness. (This is standard practice for the Tartine school of bakers like Chad Robertson and Richard Hart.)

The way I’ll do it is identical to the two-stage mature levain, except I will use it after 1-1/2 to 2 hours of proofing, when it will be about doubled in volume. Here’s how it works:

The yeast in a newly-mixed levain begin to consume the sugars in the flour and divide pretty much right away. Meanwhile, the lactic acid bacteria are slow to get going, taking an hour or two under typical conditions to adjust to their new environment and begin dividing. (Many bakers refer to this as their “lag phase,” meaning the time in which they lag behind the yeast.) As long as the levain is allowed to mature, they’ll make up for lost time with a greater rate of activity, and the density of yeast and bacteria will be maximal when it is ready for use. But if you jump the gun and use the levain early (young), the bacteria will barely have woken up, and there will be a greater density of yeast than lactic acid bacteria.

The most important thing to understand about young levains is that there will still be a lower density of yeast in a young levain than in a mature one. The yeast may be much farther along than the LAB at that point, but there would still be many more of them if you were to let the levain mature. (See the graph above, which should make it clear.)

As a result, if you want the final dough to proof at a similar rate as it would with a mature levain, you need to use more of it. I have found that I want to use about 30% more prefermented flour in my final doughs to get a young levain to behave like a mature one. (For example, if a dough normally calls for 15% prefermented flour with a mature levain, I’ll typically increase it to 20% for a young one.)

Young levains & the sweet starter process

Incidentally, the young levain process is identical to that used to prepare a levain for use in Ian Lowe’s sweet starter; the only difference (aside from the requirement that you use white flour in all stages and a slightly lower proof temperature) is that you need to repeat the second (liquid/young) stage one or more times to really depress the bacterial activity in it. (If you do three quick liquid builds, which is ideal, you’ll get a young young young levain, with virtually no bacteria present in it.)

pH and levain maturity

I really don’t think most bakers need to use a pH meter or even consider pH for success; I have a pH meter, but I rarely use it myself. But since I do have one, I did pull it out to confirm my approaches here are sound.

It’s common wisdom that a mature levain will have a pH between 3.9 and 3.7. Above 3.9 it will be slightly immature, and below 3.7 it will be on the road to overproofing. Meanwhile, a young levain should have a pH of between 4.2 and 4 (meaning it is less acidic than a mature one, thanks to its reduced LAB activity).

When I tested my overnight and two-stage mature levains, they had a pH of 3.8, which is right in the middle of where I’d want them to be. And my young levain was at pH 4.1 after 90 minutes, also within the ideal range.

What are your thoughts on this set of approaches? Do you feel like they’d cover all of your own needs for sourdough scheduling?

—Andrew

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain.

Constant companion

The writer and editor Katy Severson is the editor-in-chief of a new publication from the UK-based bakery chain GAIL’s called Companion, and their inaugural issue is—appropriately, given the name—all about bread:

For this first issue, we aimed to dig into every aspect of bread: how it has shaped the world as we know it and how it continues to affect our communities, our environment and our mental and physical health (p8). How does the bread in a country's public institutions—schools, hospitals, prisons—determine its overall food quality (p38)? What does it mean to grow grain and bake bread responsibly in a changing world? When is bread idolised and when is it wasted? What delicious things can be made from the bread we waste (p22)? And why aren't we eating more seasonal sandwiches (p106)?

We sought answers to these questions from experts we trust and the unique voices of contributors both within and outside the brand. Britain's 'Queen of Sourdough', Vanessa Kimbell, teaches us about the digestibility of sourdough and the importance of fibre and diversity for our gut health (p46). We visit one of our wheat farmers in the Cotswolds to experience the plethora of plants growing on a regenerative organic grain farm (p88); and we explore the 'terroir' potential of wheat when it's grown in good soil (p70). We learn how war dissolved the bread quality in the UK and speak to people aiming to reverse that trend (p64); and we delve into the personal and cultural histories that exist in every slice (p36).

In all of our questions and inspirations around bread, one central statement underscored it all: there is power in bread. How we use that power matters.

Katy sent me a copy of the magazine, and it is wonderful/highly recommended. So far it is only available in the UK, but it will be shipping worldwide eventually, so keep an eye out.

Mark horse

Everyone’s favorite tech genius and free-speech advocate Mark Zuckerberg apparently “loved” the “challah horse,” an AI-generated image of a massive horse made from bread, on a spam Facebook content-farming page:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “loved” an AI-generated slop image of a horse made out of bread posted by a spam page on Facebook that also posts AI-generated images of children with amputations and regularly circumvents Facebook’s algorithm to link users offsite to ad-laden AI-generated content farms.

The page, “Faithful,” is verified, operated out of Romania, has 1.1 million followers, and regularly goes mega viral with the exact type of AI slop that I have been writing about over the last year. In that sense, it is the perfect encapsulation of the type of spam page that has become dominant on the platform as Meta continues to lean into AI-generated content and pays people for going viral on the site.

“I made every detail with love, but it seems no one cares,” reads the caption of the image, which has 2.7 million reactions, 193,000 comments, and 98,000 shares as of the time of this writing. Zuckerberg’s interaction with the page was first noticed by Gazpacho Machine, a man who posts reviews of food he eats while taking showers.

Funny story about this post (emphasis mine):

The viral AI-generated bread horse image that Mark Zuckerberg “loved” on Tuesday was originally created as a meme by a Polish news organization to warn about the dangers of AI-generated slop on social media. The image became a viral sensation on the Polish internet but broke containment and began going viral more widely; it was then stolen by a totally unrelated real AI spam farm where it has gone megaviral and was ‘loved’ by the Meta CEO.

I guess this has some connection to Zuck deciding to eliminate fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram, one reason I am not posting on the latter much anymore.

Breaker bread

Apparently C.W. Call’s “Convoy,” the 1975 novelty song about truckers—which inspired the Kris Kristofferson and Ali MacGraw film of the same name—was created as part of a marketing campaign for a bread company:

The fictional character Fries and musician/producer Chip Davis created at an Omaha, Neb., ad agency was the hit of the year and prompted MGM, the record label for McCall’s plainspoken songs, to ponder a movie based on the song.

A quarter-century after “Convoy” hit No. 1, Fries is perched atop a Colorado mountain. His simple, A-frame log cabin is anchored into stone overlooking Ouray, an old silver-mining town that has turned into a stop for tourists.

“I was never a truck driver, even though people think I must have been,” Fries says. “I wanted to sound authentic. I wanted to talk like people talk. If you want to talk to truckers, you have to sound like a trucker.”

In that search for authenticity, Fries began a story that is now legend. Fries and Davis, the braintrust behind the American Gramaphone record label and leader of new-age band Mannheim Steamroller, created C.W. McCall in 1972 to help market the Old Home Bread brand of the Metz Baking Company.

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

This week I am sharing an excerpt and two recipes from Nichole Accetola’s book, Scandinavian from Scratch, which was released in 2023. Nichole is the owner of Kantine, a bakery in San Francisco inspired by her many years of living in Denmark. I’ve been a fan of the book since it came out, but I’ve recently revisited it because I have been baking lots of whole-rye sourdoughs, and making lots of open-faced sandwiches with them.

There’s perhaps no culture that has elevated the art of the open-faced sandwich higher than Denmark, where they make smørrebrød (“butter bread”—since butter or goose fat was used to glue the toppings to the bread): square slabs of dark rye sourdough bread, topped from edge to edge with meats, fish, vegetables, eggs, dairy, and more, in elegant, creative combinations.

Scandinavian from Scratch contains a “master class” in smørrebrød, with Nichole’s ten rules for making and eating the dish, and six recipes for it. I asked Nichole if I could share the master class here, along with a couple of recipes—Roasted Cauliflower, Tarragon Cream, and Almond and Sweet Potato, Goat Cheese, and Apple—and she graciously agreed. (As Nichole mentions, some smørrebrød is made on white bread, so don’t let lack of access to whole-rye stop you from making either of these.)

Finally: I’ve got an extra copy of Scandinavian from Scratch to send to one randomly-chosen Wordloaf paid subscriber.1 If you want in on the drawing, leave a comment below with your favorite open-faced sandwich combination. I’ll determine the winner one week from today and let you know with a reply.

—Andrew

How to Make and Eat Smørrebrød: A Master Class in Layering

It is no exaggeration to say that smørrebrød, or open-faced sandwiches, are the classic Danish dish. While an open-faced sandwich might not seem all that exciting to the uninitiated, Danes have made it an art form. In the nineteenth century, the onset of industrialization meant that factory workers couldn’t return home for lunch, and they needed something portable and hearty that could last until midday. Butter (or goose fat) spread on rye bread ensured that whatever meat or fish (usually left over from dinner the night before) got heaped on top wouldn’t seep through and make the bread soggy.

Some aspects of the original remain to this day. Smørrebrød literally means “butter bread,” and butter is still smeared on a slice of bread from crust to crust before other toppings get added. Nowadays, in addition to fish, cold cuts, and sliced cheese, various spreads and garnishes, such as potato salad, hummus, microgreens, veggie chips, and other contemporary toppings, might find their way onto a beautiful smørrebrød. Entire restaurants are devoted to these open-faced sandwiches, where extraordinary care is given to layering the components on smørrebrød in a way that is as visually pleasing as it is delicious.

Smørrebrød are served across all strata of society, from extremely fancy restaurants to working-class lunch counters, where they often come accompanied by a fist-size meatball or a fried fish cake. You can experiment and take some liberties in creating your own open-faced sandwiches. For instance, if you have a fantastic ripe avocado, go ahead and slice it to add on top, even though that is not a traditional Scandinavian garnish. However, there are some rules to be followed if you want this to count as an authentic smørrebrød experience rather than a plate of avocado toast.

Follow these rules as they add to your enjoyment, always keeping the visual element in mind as you create your sandwich. With fresh rye bread, good-quality butter, and whatever toppings you choose, your smørrebrød are bound to be works of delectable art. The recipes in this chapter are some of my favorite smørrebrød combinations. Feel free to make them as is or get creative and listen to your own sandwich muse!

Here Are Ten Rules for Making and Eating Smørrebrød That I Learned on the Ground:

1. Choose attractive slices of bread to serve as your blank “canvas” (never the heel).

2. Make your smørrebrød on a small and handy cutting board from which you can easily transfer it to a plate. Otherwise, it’s hard to lift the finished sandwich without having it collapse, and it keeps the edges of your plate clean.

3. Always begin by buttering the whole slice of bread from crust to crust, going to the edge but never over the edge. The rare exception to the butter rule might be if you wanted a layer of hummus on your bread instead. But even then, many Danes would apply butter beneath the hummus.

4. Don’t heap on toppings, but distribute them evenly from crust to crust, doing so in a visually pleasing manner (for instance, arranging slices of hard-boiled egg in a shingled pattern or overlapping smoked salmon so as to hide the darker bottom of each slice). Again, go to but never over the edge.

5. Any cooked components (like eggs, shrimp, or vegetables) should be prepared as lightly as possible to keep everything tasting fresh and bright.

6. Shrimp and salmon are often served on white rather than rye bread, but I personally prefer rye for all smørrebrød and break this rule without apology.

7. Add mayonnaise, aioli, or rémoulade in a dollop on top of fresh ingredients, if desired. At smørrebrød restaurant kitchens in Denmark, this is often done with a squeeze bottle to keep things looking neat.

8. When serving or ordering a meal of smørrebrød, people typically begin with herring, then move on to fish and shrimp before concluding the meal with meat and cheese.

9. Smørrebrød should please the eye as much as the palate and also include a variety of flavors (like bitter and sweet) as well as textures (like crispy and creamy). Use sprigs of fresh herbs to garnish at the end. Dill fronds are always pretty, as well as torn leaves of flat-leaf parsley or sliced chives. If you happen to have edible flowers in your garden, don’t be afraid to garnish with them! My favorites include marigold, tulip, nasturtium, violets, English daisies, calendula, dandelion, and even carnation! To garnish in a Scandinavian manner, use only the petals, not the whole flower.

10. Smørrebrød is not to be picked up and eaten with your hands but rather left on a plate and enjoyed with a knife and fork. You’ll soon understand why after you make one, since lifting one of these to your mouth would result in a messy lap.

Scandinavian From Scratch, Copyright © 2023 by Nichole Accettola. Photographs copyright © 2023 by Anders Schønnemann. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House.

Sweet Potato , Goat Cheese, and Apple Smørrebrød

Traditional Danish open-faced sandwiches are topped with meat or fish and skimp on the vegetables. Modern smørrebrød, however, break that old framework, and you can now find splendid plant-forward options in Denmark. Our talented line cook Charlie Richardson concocted the idea behind this sandwich, and as soon as we tasted it, we knew it was a winner. The combination of soft sweet potatoes; salty, tangy goat cheese; crunchy, toasted walnuts; and crisp and tart apples brings a range of textures and tastes to each bite. Goat cheese is a favorite ingredient of mine, but a crumbly blue or feta would work just as well. While roasting the sweet potatoes takes an hour (be sure to factor that into your prep time), this smørrebrød is quick to assemble.

MAKES 6 SANDWICHES

2 pounds (900 g) sweet potato

½ cup (60 g) walnuts

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

⅓ cup (75 g) sour cream

1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed

¼ teaspoon freshly ground decorticated cardamom (see page 21)

2 large green apples (such as Granny Smith or similar)

For assembly

6 freshly cut slices

Sprouted Rye Bread (page 198)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup (75 g) goat cheese

Freshly ground black pepper

2 to 3 tablespoons minced fresh herbs

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

Place the sweet potatoes on a baking tray and bake for about 1 hour, until deflated and very soft. Let the sweet potatoes cool before handling. Meanwhile, place the walnuts on a separate baking tray and toast them in the oven until lightly browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Let the walnuts cool, then coarsely chop them.

Remove and discard the sweet potato skins and transfer the flesh to a medium bowl and, using a fork or whisk, mash the sweet potatoes into a semismooth puree with only small chunks remaining.

In a small saucepan over low heat, heat the olive oil and garlic until it just begins to sizzle, without browning. Add the garlic oil to the sweet potatoes. Stir in the sour cream, salt, and cardamom.

Cut the four sides off each apple, discarding the core. Thinly slice each apple chunk. It is important to slice the apple shortly before assembling the smørrebrød so that it doesn’t turn brown.

ASSEMBLE

Lay the bread slices on a work surface. Lightly butter each slice all the way to the edges but not over. Divide the sweet potato mixture among the slices, spreading it in an even layer, again being mindful to spread to the edges of the bread but not over. Arrange the apple slices over top (use about one-quarter of an apple per sandwich) in one direction, with the green skin upward and shingled across. Using two small spoons, drop four or five pea-size pieces of the goat cheese over each sandwich.

Sprinkle each with the walnuts and a pinch of salt and grind of pepper, and garnish with the fresh herbs. Serve immediately.

Scandinavian From Scratch, Copyright © 2023 by Nichole Accettola. Photographs copyright © 2023 by Anders Schønnemann. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House.

Roasted Cauliflower , Tarragon Cream , and Almond Smørrebrød

When I first moved to the Bay Area, I was struck by the bounty, variety, and quality of local produce available at farmers’ markets. A chef’s dream come true! This vegetarian sandwich was originally created as an ode to cauliflower and romanesco, and I encourage you to use both if you have access. For those who don’t, it’s delicious made solely with cauliflower.

Oven-roasted cauliflower on its own is underrated, and it’s even better when paired with good bread and a cold herb sauce. It isn’t ideal to reheat roasted cauliflower, so I suggest that you roast the cauliflower on the day that you want to eat these sandwiches, letting it cool to room temperature and never refrigerating it.

MAKES 6 SANDWICHES

1 head cauliflower and 1 head Romanesco (or 2 heads cauliflower; about 2½ pounds/1.1 kg total)

½ teaspoon kosher salt

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup (40 g) almond slivers

Tarragon cream

Leaves from 2 bunches of tarragon, chopped (about ¼ cup), plus more for garnish

5 tablespoons (76 g) sour cream

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For assembly

6 freshly cut slices Sprouted Rye Bread (page 198)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 375°F (175°C).

Cut the cauliflower and romanesco (if using) in half, remove and discard the stems, and break the florets into 1 ½-to 2-inch (3.5 to 5 cm) pieces.

In a medium bowl, toss the florets together with the salt and olive oil until lightly coated. Spread the florets out on two baking trays, being sure to leave space between the florets as this allows air to crisp their tips, and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, until golden brown and tender.

Place the almonds in an oven-safe dish and toast them in the oven with the cauliflower for the last 15 minutes of its roasting time, until golden brown. Let both the cauliflower and almonds cool to room temperature.

MEANWHILE, MAKE THE TARRAGON CREAM

In a small bowl, mix together the tarragon, sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and mustard. Season to taste with salt and pepper. You should be able to taste the tarragon as well as the zing from the lemon juice and mustard. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

ASSEMBLE

Lay the bread slices on a work surface. Lightly butter each slice, making sure to butter all the way to the edges but not over. Top each slice of bread with about 1 tablespoon of the tarragon cream and spread it out completely. (Any extra sauce makes an excellent condiment for grilled fish or meat!) Arrange the cauliflower carefully over the top, covering the entire surface of each slice with the most appealing bits and pieces facing up. Give the smørrebrød a sprinkle of salt and a grind of pepper and garnish each with a large pinch of the almonds and a sprinkle of tarragon. Serve immediately.

Scandinavian From Scratch, Copyright © 2023 by Nichole Accettola. Photographs copyright © 2023 by Anders Schønnemann. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House.

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain.

No downtime for Downtime

My pals—and sometime Wordloaf contributor— and Sam Carmichael launched the brick-and-mortar version of their Mt. Airy bakery Downtime in December, and they’ve already gotten a glowing write-up in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Besides relaxing the pace for Downtime’s bakers, the schedule ensures maximal freshness and gives late-risers an incentive to stop by and stay a while. “People [can] come in the afternoon and know that the thing that they’re getting in the afternoon has not been sitting there all day,” Evans says. “If you know you’re coming in at 1 and I’ve just baked this pie, there’s nothing like that feeling. ‘Oh, hot pie. Sure, yeah, I’m definitely gonna come have a cup of coffee.‘”

There’s a potential downside — “if you both want pie and bagels, you’d have to stay all day,” Evans says — but the preponderance of customers so far have been locals who don’t mind swinging by a second time. Plus, Downtime’s 20-seat cafe is so cozy, you won’t mind staying awhile.

“We would love to be a bakery that anyone wants to come to, but I think our goal was to really make a terrific neighborhood spot. We’re not chasing Instagram trends or anything,” Carmichael says. “We just want people to come and sit and hang out.”

There are few things more happy-making than seeing talented friends become successful.

The toast in the machine

Either I have been out of the loop (entirely possible), or somehow kept under wraps that he’s been working on a book on bread baking! Specifically one on baking in a bread machine:

I never really imagined I’d write a book like this. Growing up in the ‘90s, we certainly had a bread machine and I loved it — especially the soft, squishy loves that my brother and I would slather with Country Crock while they were piping hot (yes, these bread recipes came from box mixes).

But from the moment I got a job at a bakery in high school and learned traditional methods for making bread, and then moved onto a career in food, I was pretty sure I’d graduated from the appliance.

Then a few years ago, the opportunity to test out a bunch of different bread machines circled me back, very unexpectedly, to this funny little appliance. I was so surprised — I just found them to be fun and quite convenient for making bread at home. And as I was revisiting it, I came to realize that for many people, bread machines never really went out of vogue.

I write about my journey in the book, which includes a focused collection of 75 recipes and also has a slightly different way of looking at the appliance than other books on the subject — as a tool for a enhancing or helping to streamline parts of bread practice, rather than a replacement for it.

I’ll admit my first reaction was one of skepticism, but a) machines are just tools, and bread bakers use all sorts of tools to make their lives easier and breads better, and b) I do think any tool or resource that gets more people baking bread is worth championing, so I’m all in. The book is available for pre-order now, and if you do so, you have a chance to get in on a sweepstakes for a pile of useful items, including a bread machine. I’m hoping to talk Lukas into chatting with me here about the book soon.

Family Friend by Lukas Volger

My Plush Protein Bread, My New Cookbook

Happy weekend, everyone! Today I’m very excited to share a new project of mine, one that’s a little different from what I’ve done so far…

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2 years ago · 46 likes · 21 comments · Lukas Volger

OK Dough

I knew about the band OK Go, but it wasn’t until I saw their latest video on ’s excellent, Friday Bread Basket-like newsletter Six Things (both of which are highly recommended) that I stumbled upon this bready video.

Six Things

Six Things, Volume 95

Thing 1 – Film…

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2 years ago · 74 likes · 6 comments · Lev Parikian

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

[N.B. I’m working on a future post on the joys and benefits of machine-mixing doughs, something I have covered here already, but it’s not ready yet. Today’s post really should come after that one, since it covers the use of a technique that works best (or only works well at all) when using a stand mixer. So as you read it, remember that this is as much about the virtues of machine-mixing as it is bassinage.]

Bassinage, also known as double-hydration, is the deliberate holding back of a portion of the total water in a dough in order to promote quick and efficient development; once the dough is sufficiently strong, any remaining water is mixed in until it is fully incorporated. Bassiner means “to bathe” in French, and the use of the word bassinage evokes the second addition of water, at the start of which the dough will be soupy and wet, as if being given a bath.

Bassinage is most often used in high-hydration doughs that are otherwise too high in hydration to mix efficiently (or at all) when mixed in full from the get-go, but I’ve found that it can be equally useful even in doughs that aren’t excessively wet. And while there are some bakers who use it with hand-mixed doughs, it’s most commonly employed with machine-mixing, because getting the final water into the dough by hand—particularly when there is a lot of it—is challenging, and not necessarily fun.

If you were to add all of the water to a high-hydration dough at the very start of mixing, the gluten strands will be so dilute that they’ll slip past one another without linking up. Moreover, the dough will typically be too sloppy to catch on the dough hook, which will just spin around the bowl in vain. By holding back a portion of the liquid from the formula at the outset of mixing—say 5 to 20% of the total—you get a dough that is low enough in hydration to develop efficiently and quickly.

Every flour (or combination of flours) has an “ideal” range of hydration for mixing—something that gives a dough soft enough for the machine to handle without straining1, while dry enough for the mixer to do its work. A decent “moderate” hydration formula will sit within this range, and can be mixed easily with all of the water in the bowl from the start. But any formula with a final hydration well above it will likely benefit from the use of bassinage.

I’ve made plenty of high-hydration doughs entirely by hand, and I know it’s not essential to machine-mix them using bassinage. Periodic folding during the bulk fermentation and the dough-strengthening effects of fermentation itself (i.e, acidity) are often sufficient to yield a dough that is strong at time of shaping. But the differences between fully hand-mixed doughs and those developed in a machine using bassinage are obvious, and the resulting loaves are often much improved because of it—the doughs are often easier to handle at time of shaping, and the breads typically have a more-open crumb.

Bassinage also allows you to push the limits of hydration much farther than possible with hand-mixed doughs. For example, my standard refined (white) flour sourdough formulas typically start in the 70-75% hydration range. I’ve successfully pushed the hydration up to about 80% when hand-mixing, giving the dough a few extra folds during the bulk fermentation to build necessary structure. It works, but even then the dough is often quite sticky and challenging to shape, at least without skill and confidence.

But using bassinage, I’ve taken the hydration up to 85%, and I’m convinced I could go much higher if I wanted to. Doughs made with it, even those with loads of water in them, are supple and silky, and they hold themselves up in the tub from the start of the bulk fermentation. Unlike hand-mixed doughs, which typically need four to six folds during the bulk, a well-mixed, bassinaged dough only requires two or three, and they only serve to de-gas the dough and keep fermentation proceeding apace. By the second or third fold, the dough often has a permanent tautness and does not spread out much when given time to relax, even before the dough begins to acidify. (When folding hand-mixed doughs, I’ll typically fold every 30–45 minutes; with bassinaged doughs, I’ll do them once an hour or so. In both cases, I’ll stop when the dough ceases to spread appreciably between folds.)

[The two images on the left are of an 80% hydration, hand-mixed dough at the start of the bulk fermentation and the end. Those on the right are an 85%-hydrated dough, mixed in a machine, using bassinage. They are otherwise identical in weight and formulation.]

Bakers sometimes use the term “second water” to refer to the water added in the bassinage (and “first water” for the initial portion). It’s usually best to add the second water slowly, either streaming it in gently, or adding it a portion at a time, waiting for each glug to be incorporated into the dough before adding the next, to avoid splashing and sloshing, and to keep the mixer working efficiently throughout.

Bassinage is easy to do in a spiral mixer, but it can be done with planetary mixers and an Ankarsrum too; in fact, it can make these types of mixers more effective. Spiral mixers are much more efficient at getting wetter doughs to form than planetary mixers; bassinage is one way to make the most of the latter, where even a slightly over-hydrated dough can be challenging to mix.

When using bassinage with planetary mixers, it’s definitely a good idea to add the second water slowly, and to decrease the speed of the mixer during the addition, to prevent sloshing. Once the water is mostly incorporated, you can increase the mixer speed and continue mixing until the dough is even in texture. (A few bakers I’ve spoken to mix on speed two—4 or 6 on a KitchenAid—once the water is incorporated, suggesting it helps smooth out the dough more quickly and fully.)

As for the combination of hand-mixing and bassinage, yes, it can be done, but it only makes sense when you are hand-developing the dough. There’s no point in holding back any water when you are simply developing strength passively via fermentation and folding. If you actually knead your dough, you can certainly use bassinage to make the process easier by bringing the starting hydration down to a more-modest level; once the dough has the necessary strength, you can then add the final water by pinching and kneading it in, either all at once or in portions.

Finally, bassinage is an especially useful technique when attempting to push the hydration of doughs beyond what you are used to. Rather than adding all of the extra water from the start, you can instead mix the dough as normal, then add water a little at a time, testing the strength and the texture of the dough in order to decide when enough is enough.

For Breaducation, I am setting the hydration of most doughs to a somewhat conservative level, to make them approachable for bakers of all skill levels. Where appropriate, the recipe will clearly indicate the weight of +5% water, so bakers can inch up beyond that base hydration when they are feeling ready to.

What are your thoughts or questions about the bassinage technique? Hit me up in the comments below.

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain. The Basket has been somewhat intermittent while I’ve been toiling in the flour mines on my book, and it will likely continue in that way until it is in the can next summer, alas. In order to keep up with the pile-up of links I have accumulated, I’m going to try sharing more items, but keep their briefs a little shorter than usual until then.

recently shared a recipe for a simple, seedy loaf for when you want great bread without all the usual effort:

The other night, before feeding Pauline (my half-rye, half-whole wheat sourdough starter), I realized wanted a loaf of bread. I wasn't in the mood to make a full-on sourdough. I had other, more complicated recipes to test, therefore I wanted somtething simple. So I improvised on a loaf of overnight no-knead (or low-knead) bread, something grainy, seedy, and perfect for sandwiches or toast. I measured some flour, yeast, water, and salt but didn't follow a recipe. I know the basic quantities to fill my loaf pan, the proper amount of salt (2% of the weight of the flour), and that 1/4 teaspoon of yeast is plenty for an overnight rise at room temperature. I know about how much water the dough needs, and I add more until it feels right.

Great Bakes

Lovely Lazy Loaf

After surviving the holiday baking season and being joyfully neck-deep in testing recipes for my book, I realized I needed to play. Most people think that baking, unlike cooking, doesn’t allow room for for improvising. But once you know the rules and know what things should look and feel like, you learn how to play around. Baking without a recipe can le…

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2 years ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · Martin Sorge

shared a lovely piece about grief and laminated doughs:

Undertaking this project required relinquishing myself to its timetable and devoting myself to the precise monitoring of the temperature and texture of the butter and dough. I had to get out of my head a little bit; I had to let the croissants possess me. In this intricate, intense diversion, I felt like I was starting to re-find myself. The fog of my grief felt like it was starting to lift: each set of folds that I performed on the dough was a source of newfound meaning and purpose toward a satisfying end goal.

Beurrage

Laminations

A version of this essay came out a year ago as “Laminations of Grief” in Kitchen Work’s Home Cooking issue. It’s my first piece of writing to be properly published; so much of what I’ve written since this essay feels tethered to it, like it branches off of the themes within it, including grief, community, local food, and ultimately, what gives our lives…

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2 years ago · 17 likes · 4 comments · Clare Michaud

Kitchen Arts and Letters (one of my fave booksellers) recently announced the East Village Cookbook, a comb-bound collection of recipes from restaurants and denizens of the neighborhood, including many spots I used to frequent when I lived on East 9th St. There’s even a recipe from B&H Dairy, a regular lunch spot that inspired the pan challah bread that is going into my book:

This bold, big-hearted community cookbook captures the character and history of New York City's East Village neighborhood. Published to support a soup kitchen and food pantry across from Tompkins Square Park in the heart of the East Village, it features recipes and the occasional story from local cooks, famous residents, and beloved and renowned restaurants.

A very partial list of contributors includes:

Veselka, Momofuku, Cafe Mogador, Superiority Burger, B & H Dairy, and Veniero’s,

Susan Sarandon, Alan Cumming, legendary punk musician Richard Hell, and magician and mentalist Prakesh Puru…

Sales of this book benefit Trinity Services and Food for the Homeless, which operates a soup kitchen and food pantry across from Tompkins Square Park in the heart of NYC's East Village neighborhood. In addition, through Friday, February 14, Kitchen Arts & Letters will contribute an additional $10 for each copy we sell.

Down North Pizzeria, the Philly Detroit-style shop that employs only formerly-incarcerated people, has a book coming out soon—We the Pizza—containing stories and recipes from the restaurant:

Created and launched by Philly born-and-bred entrepreneur Muhammad Abdul-Hadi, the mission of Down North Pizza is to reduce recidivism rates in North Philly and serve up the most insanely delicious food while doing it.

We the Pizza tells the Down North story about how the restaurant fulfills its mission to educate and support the formerly incarcerated while serving dope food. A testament to survival and second chances, this cookbook offers recipes for the tender, crispy-edged, square-cut, sauce-on-top pies that are Down North's signature dish; a whole chapter is devoted to vegetarian and vegan pizzas like No Better Love made with four cheeses and the arrabbiata-inspired Norf Sauce, while the meat and seafood pizza chapter features their most popular Roc the Mic pepperoni pie as well as the smoky berbere-brisket Tales of a Hustler and Say Yes, topped with jerk turkey sausage, roasted butternut squash, kale, ricotta, and lemon-honey drizzle.

You can preorder a signed copy here, or find it at your favorite local bookseller after 2/11 (or get it here).

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful, and maybe service-focused MLK weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew

[Happy 2025, all. I began working on this post well before the fires in Los Angeles erupted last week, and things obviously have gotten much worse since then. If you are looking for ways to support people there, this post from is a good place to start.]

As my Breaucation testers already know, I have been trying to perfect my 100%-rye loaves for some time now. Late last summer I decided to reach out to Sophie Williams, —of Bellingham, WA’s Raven Breads, whose whole-rye breads have long been an inspiration to me—for some advice. Sophie created a tiny-but-mighty zine on whole-rye baking called “Up Rye Zine”1—which she gives away for free on the bakery’s website—that I’d already found extremely helpful, so I was eager to hear more about her own journey with rye baking, and her approach to managing its many pitfalls.

This interview is a long one, but I think it is worth it for anyone who wants to tackle these amazing, if sometimes challenging breads (it certainly was for me), or anyone who loves a story of a small bakery coming into being.

(All of the images in this post were borrowed from Raven’s Instagram feed with permission.)

—Andrew

Andrew: I want to focus on ryes specifically, but I think my readers would first love to hear a little something about Raven Breads and your journey with it. Can you tell me about how you got started in baking, how you started the bakery, and where you are now?

Sophie Williams: I started the business in 2014 with no background in commercial baking or even in restaurant work. I had been working on farms and decided that that was not going to be my career. I knew that I liked working with my hands. And I had this kind of romantic idea of bread baking because I'd been going to the Kneading Conference West for a couple of years—which became the Grain Gathering—and meeting all these really amazing bakers. And so I decided to start a bakery.

I made really atrocious bread for a year. I was making “Tartine” bread poorly out of the commissary of a pizza restaurant in town, selling at farmer’s markets and by subscription. Somehow people kept buying my bread even though it was under-proofed or over-proofed or had tunnels down the middle or it was just—it was a mess.

Then I went and staged for maybe three weeks with Dawn Woodward in Toronto that first winter, and it was pretty transformative. I came back and decided I wasn't going to use white flour anymore—I stopped making Tartine bread and started doing all whole-grain baking. That meant that I basically had to relearn how to bake. So then I spent another year making and selling really horrible bread.

And people still bought it.

People still bought it.

You were fortunate to have customers who were willing to go with you on your journey to better bread.

Part of it, I think, was that there weren't a lot of options in town. And part of it was that I was twenty-five and enthusiastic, and people were just kind and felt some connection to me. I was already writing my newsletter and I think that personal connection made it possible. I was doing everything myself—when I was selling ugly bread, I was at least the one selling it and able to tell people [what happened] and apologize.

I kept doing that same business for almost a decade. It just got bigger and I moved to a different commissary kitchen, I added some wholesale, and I hired occasional part-time help to work the farmer’s markets or do deliveries. But basically I just did everything myself out of a pretty horrible, windowless commissary kitchen.

Maybe four or five years ago, I started looking for a space to build out myself. I had this really unrealistic idea of bootstrapping the business as I had been doing and not borrowing a ton of money, and it took me a couple years to find a space and also to come around to the idea of going into a lot of debt. So it was a pretty slow progression from 2014 to opening the shop in the beginning of 2023.

So it's been about a year-and-a-half since you've had the shop.

And it's great. I kind of wish I'd done it a long time ago, but also it's fine. I learned a lot running the business the way that I did. Now I have the shop, and I've got a bread baker, I've got a pastry baker, I've got retail staff, I've got farmer’s market staff, and we're still small—just five people. I've only got one mix shift a week now, which is pretty astonishing, and one really early morning. I'm in there most days, but there are days when I don't have to be, which is pretty sweet. It's a new thing to have staff, and a new set of skills to learn.

At what point in that arc did you start doing 100% rye-flour breads?

I think it was in year two, when I shifted to doing all whole-grain.

So it was something you knew you wanted to do early on. Were you already a fan of rye breads or did you get turned on to them by Dawn or someone else?

My best guess—this was a long time ago, and my memory is pretty spotty—I probably just started because that was what the local mills had. In 2014-15, we had one local mill, and they were direct-contracting their wheat and rye and buying-in their smaller-scale grains like buckwheat, corn, teff, and oats. Wheat and rye were the things they were direct-contracting, so those were the grains that I focused on.

Compared to your learning curve for wheat breads, how did you find the ryes?

Oh man, rye was so hard. There was no one! I still had the Grain Gathering—which doesn't exist anymore—and I was so lucky to have that for the first years that I had the bakery, because I could go once a year to “bread summer camp” and hang out with a bunch of people more experienced than I was and ask them questions and make connections. Every winter for the first maybe five or six years I would go and visit other bakeries and stage in them. Most of those connections were from that conference, either first- or second-degree connections from there.

But no one I talked to really understood what was going on with rye. People had rye breads that they were making in their bakeries, but they just made them the way they made them, and didn't know why they were making them that way.

For years I would ask people about flying roofs and gummy bottoms and all of the other issues that I had with my rye breads, and I would get different answers every time. “Maybe you should cool your breads upside down and then they won't have a hole in them or”…all sorts of things.

It wasn't until I took the Modern Bread [and Viennoiserie] class at SFBI, in maybe 2018. Thomas [Teffri-Chambelland] shared a lot of bread science, including rye science, and that was pretty transformative. About that same time I read James MacGuire's Real Rye Bread article in the Art of Eating. And I did a road trip through the Northeast and spoke to Randy George at Red Hen about this rye experiment that he and Jeffrey Hamelman did with the one of the grain breeders from the Vermont Extension. Those three pieces of input made it clear that I needed to understand the science of what was going on. And that was what I collated into that little rye zine.

Did you create the zine immediately, like, “Oh, I figured it all out now I want to share everything I know?”

Kind of, yeah. That was such a turning point for me, and now I feel like I can make up a rye recipe on the fly in the same way that I can make up a wheat recipe, because I understand the ratios and I understand the fermentation. Once in a while I will over- or under-ferment something, but I feel pretty comfortable with rye in the same way that I feel comfortable with wheat, and I just didn't for a long time. It just felt like such a black box for a long time because I didn't understand acidity and enzymes and what was going on inside the loaf.

It’s amazing that something that is so hard for most people, especially if they've never done it before, could be summarized in such a tiny little booklet, but you do an amazing job of getting at all the really important stuff. As a bread zine it's definitely one of the best—it's the perfect format for what it is and the all the information is there. I love it.

Thanks. When I wrote it I imagined that I would keep learning more at the same pace. I had that “rye awakening,” I guess. I had this idea that I would keep progressing at that same rate, and I'd write follow-ups. But I feel like that was it, that was what I needed, because now I can make functional rye bread consistently.

Unlike you I am not doing a ton of experimenting [anymore]. I make up new things for the bakery, but I tend to make up new things with the tools I already have, things that I know will be successful. It's not so common for us to start completely from scratch and do side-by-side tests on anything big, and so I don't feel like I've like had any big leaps of insight.

Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, I am working on a book. But I actually cannot wait now to get to the point where I can just put it out in the world and just use it and not have to test things. Now that I have a rye process that works for me, I'm just going to use it. I don't feel like I need to keep reinventing the wheel or trying other processes.

I want to talk through some of the ways that you make ryes and, I'll be honest, this is first and foremost for me, not my readers. I want to pass it along to them too, but really I want to I want to confirm the things that I feel are correct with somebody who's more experienced than me. So thank you for letting me run them by you for my own purposes.

Do you mix by hand now or did you mix by hand in the beginning?

I mixed by hand for the entire first decade, when I was in the commentary kitchen. Everything, not just bread but also like 30-kilo batches of cookie dough in bus tubs. But not anymore.

Is mixing ryes by machine just a question of having another set of hands, or do you feel like there's some other advantage to it?

It's a little hard to say because my ovens are so much better now too. I would hazard the guess that my wheat breads are not quite as nice being machine-mixed. I don't think it's changed the rye bread significantly. We're just mixing on first speed. So mostly it's body-saving. It's like the e-bike that we use for deliveries now. I wouldn't want to ask anyone else to treat their body the way that I treated mine.

How did mixing differ when it was done by hand?

When I was mixing my by hand I mixed everything—wheat and rye—just to incorporation. I have never done autolyses with rye, so it was just mixing everything together. I guess the only real difference—and this is hardly a difference, just a technicality—is that when hand-mixing I would always put in the water first and when machine-mixing we put the flour in first. Other than that, I would say it's pretty much just mixing to incorporation.

Jeffrey [Hamelman] in Bread has something I think about really long mixes, like the higher the rye percentage the longer the mix. But honestly I if we mix in first speed for three minutes or ten minutes, I don't feel like the bread comes out differently.

That's really useful to know because both Jeffrey and James emphasize the idea that the dough should achieve a certain consistency—or “flow”—at the end of mixing. It sounds like what you're saying is that it is really a question of formulation, not the amount of mixing, that dictates flow in rye doughs.

How do you think of “flow” in rye doughs and how you achieve it?

I don't have a good answer for that. We've like gone through so many different rye flour harvests in the past couple years, and they've all been so different, so I feel like most of our focus has been on trying to figure out hydration and fermentation timelines [for each]. I did write about flow in the zine and it was something that I have thought about more at other points. Of late, the differences have been so vast between the different rye flours that we've been getting that that's felt like the most important thing.

So how do you manage adjusting hydration when it comes to working with a new rye flour?

The last mill that we were buying from, the mill that we were buying from for eleven years, switched lots without telling us. They started buying in rye from who knows where, and we ended up having to reduce the hydration by 10%, which is a lot. And I had to start adding salt to the preferments—it was just super, super enzymatic. It made these incredibly beautiful breads, but was pretty hard to work with. And that was the weirdest rye thing we've experienced recently.

I’m sure that if I could keep getting that rye from them, I probably would have just figured it out and reformulated everything and continue to buy it, because the breads really were pretty stunning. But I ended up deciding to switch to a different local mill because I didn't trust them not to switch things up on me again and deny changing lots.

I think people they can get away with doing sketchy things with their rye because most people are blending it—using like 10% rye with 90% bread flour—so they're not going to notice that the flour is weird. But yeah, I don't think I have a tidy answer for you.

That's fine. To me, that's one of the other things that's challenging with ryes, especially if you're going to teach home bakers or beginners to work with it. I can send people to King Arthur all-purpose flour from the supermarket, and it's a known quantity that anybody, anywhere is going to make work. But when it comes to rye flour, who knows what people are getting, if they can find it. I'm sure most people in the States have a decent mill nearby but, still, it’s a wild card.

It does seem to me that whole-rye breads are pretty amenable to the hydration being not quite ideal and still getting something that's good, as long as the other aspects of the process are solid. But it's a challenging thing to call for 100% whole-rye flour and hope for the best for people at home. It's useful to know that even people who work with it all the time have challenges too.

Yeah, I think it's just an inevitable part of it being not even a secondary but a tertiary grain.

I feel like actually rye flour used to be easier to find in supermarkets. Other flours, especially wheat flour, are becoming more and more available, but rye seems to be going away, at least in terms of supermarket availability.

Can we talk about rye preferments and how they relate to the fermentation of the dough? In ryes, the sour is so much more important to the final dough. It's hard to talk about the fermentation of the dough without talking about the sour itself, because how much you use has such a strong bearing on things.

How much do you think about dough pH in terms of relying upon a pH meter or simply how much prefermented flour you use? Do you change that up, or are you pretty consistent from day-to-day or formula-to-formula?

I don’t measure pH. I bought a pH meter after the [SFBI] class with Thomas because it was such a big part it. But at some point I dropped it and it broke, and I didn't buy another one. But, in terms of acidity, I'm just looking for [dough] breakdown. I guess I'm using enzymatic activity as a proxy for pH. When I'm formulating our preferments, I am choosing the inoculation and the presence or absence or level of salt based on getting a fully-ripe, but not collapsing preferment at mix time.

And it’s the same for our final proofs—we're basically looking at dough breakdown. We're looking for a certain amount of breakdown, but not too much.

What hydration do you use in your sours?

100%.

Okay, so it's loose. I've been doing mine at 80%. It's on the stiff side, and it tends to move not that much. Did you ever do it that way, or have you always done it at 100%?

When we had that weird flour last month the month before I dropped the hydration in an attempt to control the fermentation. Although I'm not sure how much hydration actually has to do with enzyme activity, which was, I think, what was going on in that flour. But no, for the most part for ryes, I just stick to 100% hydration. I think I could have chosen a different hydration as a starting point and I would just be adjusting seed culture and salt based on that. All our preferments are quite long just because of our bakery schedule.

How long is long?

The preferments are getting mixed between 3 and 5pm, and the dough is getting mixed between 7 and 10am.

So it's about 18 hours.

Like right now, our rye inoculation is 3%. I'll probably drop that down to 2%, because it's getting warmer or maybe add some salt and pull back the salt in the final recipes a little bit.

And so you look for them to, to sort of level-off or slightly collapse?

Yeah, ideally I don't want it to collapse. I want like nice, steep shoulders. I want this:

Yeah, I know what I mean. You don't want it to dome, you want it to nearly flatten out.

Yeah, and I want it to smell sour and sweet. Our particular preferment right now is very fruity. When it's nice and ripe, it's got a lot of kind of banana smell. And there's surface breakdown on the rye, but I definitely don't want it getting soupy.

That makes sense. In terms of how much prefermented flour you use in the final dough, does that stay consistent or do you tweak that based on the formula itself?

It's consistent within a formula, we just change our desired dough temperature or fermentation temperature. So with 100%-rye bread, I’d generally be doing about 40% prefermented flour. Less if it contains wheat flour.

I've been doing 50% and while it seems to work, it has made me wonder whether I could dial it back and still get something good and maybe something a little bit less sour in the finished product.

I think you can go down to as low as 30% with 100%-rye bread.

I may play around with that. I also want to foolproof my recipes for other people. So something that is a little too sour may be better than something that for half of the people who make it, it’s going to fall apart in the oven.

For final dough temperatures and proof temperatures, how do you decide what you want those to be, and what do you typically aim for? Assuming the temperature is constant in wherever you're working.

It's not. Our desired dough temperature is changing seasonally. We do have climate control in the bakery—between like 65 and 80˚F—but those are very different temperatures. In the winter, I'm aiming at a higher temperature coming out of the mixer. And we’ll often extend the bulk a little bit, so we get more fermentation while the dough is warm, because it cools down so quickly once it's shaped.

I guess that's not really relevant for home bakers though, because their bulk is not bulk. So, yeah, for 100%-rye bread, we’re aiming somewhere between 80 and 90˚F depending on the time of year.

The test baker at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Hazim [Tugun], told me they were proofing in the mid-90s, which is bold. You have to be just right with your oven schedule if you're proofing that hot, because you could blink and miss it, and have your bread collapse.

Right. How long do you want your final proof to be?

We definitely haven't dialed it in completely. Right now [in the summer], we're about two-and-a-half hours from mixed to baked. And in the winter we are closer to four-and-a-half. Just because it’s pretty hard when you have a cold preferment and a cold soaker, there's so little water in the final dough—or in some of our I breads, no [additional] water—there's not [much you can do to] control dough temperatures. With wheat breads we can pretty consistently get it where we want it, but with rye it is more of a hope and an ambition.

You mentioned bulk fermenting when things are cold, to hold on to the mass of dough to keep it warm in the beginning. Is that really the only reason you would bulk ferment a rye dough versus moving straight from the mixer to pans?

Yeah, I don't think that bulk does anything for ryes. I think you could shape immediately or you could shape as you go into the oven and get the same results.

Oh, really? You just let it proof fully in the bowl and then scrape it in and bake it and you think you get something more or less the same?

I haven't actually tried that, but we definitely have had production days where things were going on and we didn't get to shaping until late. So we might have three hours of bulk and a half an hour of [final] proof and the end result looks identical.

That's interesting. I might play around with that. I feel like wherever you can find flexibility in recipes is going to be helpful for people. They tend to think, “If I don't do it the way I'm told, it’s not going to work,” and wherever you can tell people okay, don't stress too much. I don't know why you'd need to wait, but you could if you wanted to.

So then what do you look for in a fully-proofed rye bread?

At this point we have our scaling such that I can just like tell people to look at volume because there is a [specific] amount that the bread will be risen. But I am looking at the surface of the loaf, mostly looking for the most breakdown I’m comfortable with.

So you really, it's really about pushing it as far as it'll go before it’s collapsed.

Yeah.

What's your take on why some rye baker’s breads have that really dramatic, “baked-desert-floor” cracking versus a very fine cracking?

I feel like that dramatic cracking is [a sign of] under-proofing.

That's kind of my take too. That you shouldn't really get more than a little spring in the oven, and if you do, it's going to push up and form cracks. And that's something you would generally want to avoid, because it means you're not proofing long enough and that could cause other problems.

It also makes it hard to eat when you have giant divots in your bread. And because we do mostly pan breads, if we underproof we tend to get blowouts along the edge of the pan. So then you have creases coming in from the side, which are really inconvenient for sliced bread.

If I want cracking in a hearth loaf specifically, I can just proof it in a basket and have the dough contained, and then turn it out and let it open up for a minute to get that look, but also proof it properly. I’m not sure how you would do that in a pan bread.

I like that look, but I feel like the better I've gotten at making ryes, the less I'm able to get it. They tend to be more refined and flat on top, which is probably a good thing. Chasing down that kind of aesthetic over perfection in other ways is probably not a good idea.

Do you make many 100%-rye hearth loaves?

I like them, so once in a while I'll be stubborn and make one, but they don't really sell. It's [got] a lot of crust and it has a weird [cross-section]—if you're not doing meat and cheese plates like a German, what are you going to do with a bread like that? I've never gotten into those really upright Scandinavian breads—taller 100% rye hearth breads, the shiny ones like limpa. I feel like that would be a more practical profile, sales-wise.

What does your bake look like, is it hot with steam at first and then low for a long period of time, or something else?

When I was baking in a convection oven, yes, because I didn't have any thermal mass in the oven. It was basically the equivalent of a home oven. And in that case I was cranking the oven as hot as it would go because I was putting something like 2.7 kilos x 15 into the oven at once, which was pulling down the oven 200˚F as soon as I loaded it. But with the deck oven we just we bake it 375˚F top and bottom for an hour and a half for Pullman breads.

I'm guessing that at this point you probably just know when your ryes are done by just setting a timer, but would you judge when a loaf is done if you weren't sure? How do you tell from the outside?

With a pan bread, I want the side walls to be fully set. You can have a pan bread that's at temp [inside] but is still soft on the side. I think in general we bake to a hotter [internal] temperature, to avoid torn or slumping sides. So like 206 to 210˚F.

You don't feel like there's any downside to drying out the crust too much or thickening it too much?

No, because there's so much moisture in a rye loaf that it’s going to equilibrate. The first day it’s going to have a thick, hard crust, maybe, but within 24 hours, especially if you're at home and wrapping it in a cloth, or putting it in a bread box or something, the whole loaf is basically the same hydration.

That's good to know because there are some recipes that have you take the bread out of the pan and put it back in either the hot oven or an off oven.

Too complicated.

Yeah. Even if you're just doing one loaf, it's pain in the butt to do. I'm going to ditch that because I was happy with the way they were before anyway. And I was taking them pretty dark and pretty hot—at least 205˚F and sometimes higher. I guess that's one of the many ways that rye is more adaptable, as long as it has all that extra moisture in it. So it doesn't matter if your crust is dry to begin with.

Yeah, because you're not even generally eating it on the first day.

Yeah. Jim Williams says he likes to cut it into his breads when they're still hot. And I agree with him that when they're not overbaked, they're really delicious at that stage. But it's this brief moment where it's a very different bread and it goes away within a few hours. And then you have to wait a whole day to continue eating it. But it is really nice.

For years, when I was still collapsing bread all the time, I would have these “Oh, shit” panic moments, where I decided that I had collapsed the entire batch and I would get impatient and would cut a loaf in half. And it would just be gummy inside, as they are. And it would be really hard to tell what the crumb was like, so then I'd cut another one in half and [another one]. You can't stick them back together, they are still weird and gummy after they've cooled [when you do that].

Do you sell your breads the day they're made or do you hold them before you put them on the shelf?

We sell everything—wheat and rye—the next day, or for multiple days in the case of rye.

And do you tell people they're ready to eat at that point or do you tell them to wait still?

No, they're fine.

How do you recommend your customers store the bread when they take it home?

I feel it depends on the person—cut side down on the counter is easy if they're going to eat it within a week. And if they want to keep it longer, I'll often tell people to put it in a Ziploc or a wax wrap and stick it in the fridge, which I know is slightly blasphemous, but it makes it really easy to cut and it'll hold for like a month that way. It doesn't go stale because it's sour.

I've been thinking about saying the same thing, that putting it in plastic and into the fridge as the way to go, especially if you can't eat a whole loaf quickly. That’s another nice thing about ryes—that they don’t retrograde the way wheat breads do when they get cold.

I think it's the acidity that keeps it from staling because at the end of the week we’ll stick any leftover bread in the fridge to deal with the next week. The wheat breads are also fine. But they’re all sour.

We've already talked a little bit about your early issues with flying roofs, but what do you consider the pitfalls to rye baking, and what are the solutions to them?

I think the pitfalls are people baking by the book instead of baking by their senses. I feel like it mostly comes down to fermentation for rye: You have to fully ferment, or add acid. There are lots of rye recipes that use buttermilk or pickle juice or whatever to add acidity, and that's fine too. But if you're using sourdough, you have to have a mature culture going in, and you have to fully ferment the loaf.

And in terms of runaway amylase activity, to avoid gumminess or tunnels? Is that just a question of not over-fermenting in the pan?

Stopping when you need to stop. I do feel like [avoiding] over-fermentation is a much easier thing for people to learn than [avoiding] under-fermentation. I feel like for under-fermentation, like people want [an instruction] like, “Let the dough rise to a specific amount,” and that’s much harder to do with rye, because it depends upon the flour [and other factors].

How do you deal with things like inclusions or seeds or spices? How does using them change the process?

I would say that for small inclusions like spices or if I swap out 10 to 15% of the flour for cornmeal or something, I don’t worry about it, I just do a one-for-one swap or just add the spices in. If I'm adding a lot of inclusions, then I'm looking at the total formula, so I know what percent hydration I'm aiming for, or what percent salt compared to all of the dry ingredients. So it’s just adjusting, based on everything added together.

What about liquids? I was scrolling through Instagram and saw that you were adding orange syrup leftover from candying oranges to one formula.

If I'm adding applesauce, molasses, orange syrup, cooked potatoes, zucchini, or whatever it is, I’ll just ballpark what I think the hydration is and then include that when I'm calculating the overall hydration.

Are you are you adjusting on the fly in the mixer? Do you hold back liquid and just get to the same basic consistency in the bowl?

One could do that, but that's not usually what I do. I’m usually messing around in a spreadsheet with the additions—the percent hydration, percent prefermented flour, moving numbers around until I have the balance of factors that I'm looking for. I don't think that's necessary for home baking. So what if you collapse a loaf? In general, if you're not adding things that are wetter than your dough, you’ll be fine. If you're adding things that are wetter, then hold back water and add a little extra salt.

How often do you add wheat to your rye formulas?

Our staple rye is 60/40 rye-wheat, and it is what it is. It’s one of the first breads I started making and it’s shifted slightly over the years, but it’s a seedy rye and wheat bread. It’s very approachable. It’s got caraway and coriander—it’s like a gateway rye.

Do you ferment that one at all differently than your 100%-ryes?

The preferemented flour is a little bit lower, I think it is closer to 30%, and we’re usually mixing it a little bit cooler. The thought there is that we will passively build some gluten strength during the bulk, but I don’t know if that’s actually true. We do give it an hour-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours of bulk.

And then another hour or two in the pan?

Yeah, something like that. When I was mixing by hand, I would mix the base dough of that one—the wheat, rye, preferment, salt, and water—with the idea that I would build more strength that way, then I would add all the inclusions a little bit later.

But you don’t anymore?

No, we just put everything together [in the mixer]. I'm very much a fan of making everything as easy as possible. We shape as little as possible, we eliminate stages whenever we can.

I think that covers just about everything, thank you so much for chatting with me!

Sorry I didn’t have tidy answers for everything you asked. I feel like I’ve become the baker who was so maddening [for me] in the beginning—we just do things the way we do things!

This is a reworking of a recipe I first developed at America’s Test Kitchen, with more than 50% whole-rye flour in it. Both the original and this version are among my favorite cookie recipes, not only because they are excellent and easy to make, but because you can whip up a full batch of dough in a matter of minutes in a food processor, using butter pulled straight from the fridge. (Emergency holiday cookies, if you will.)

And the technique I devised for rolling out the dough between two sheets of parchment is easy-peasy, once you get the hang of the rolling and pushing motion it requires. (I’ve used this trick on a bunch of other roll-and-cut cookies since.) The dough needs to chill for a few hours in the fridge after rolling out, but it can be held for up to five days before baking (and up to a month in the freezer), so you can basically have cookies on demand once you get it in there.

I’ve only made these with whole-rye flour so far, but I’m fairly certain that the rye could be swapped out with another whole-grain flour—whole-wheat, spelt, buckwheat, whatever.

Once the cookies are cut, the scraps of dough can be combined, rerolled, chilled, and cut and baked; they might end up a teensy bit tougher, but the difference is hard to notice.

The chocolate variation is made by simply adding a little cocoa and espresso powder to the vanilla recipe. Something I realized while making both this week is that if you make a batch of each at the same time, you can marbleize the scraps by chopping them up, tossing them together, and then rolling them out.

Also, as I mention in the recipe, after you cut the second batch from the scrap dough, instead of re-rolling it a third time, just bake the larger scrap pieces as treats for yourself, so that you can save the pretty ones for gift-giving. I kind of like the look of them, they resemble imaginary cookie states—like East Dakota or New Indiana—or heavily-gerrymandered congressional cookie districts.

I don’t have a royal icing recipe for you here because I didn’t have time to ice these myself (I will before giving them as gifts next week), but there are plenty of recipes out there and instructions on how to make them pretty (pretty is not exactly my forté anyway).

—Andrew

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