Knead You Now
Guys, I feel like a doughnut
I mean metaphorically, I actually don't like doughnuts that much.
What I'm trying to say is that there's a hole in my core that used to be filled with dough. (Though FWIW, a ring around my mid-section still appears to be generously doughy.)
Starting a wholesale baking business was not, precisely, something that I had set out to do. It was more of a diem that I carpe-ed, so to speak. Baking comprises a very solid strand of my DNA, but I'd always connected more broadly to cooking on a professional level than to the somewhat fiddly pursuit of patisserie.
In that respect it makes a lot of sense that my style and interests as a baker has always tended to veer towards the savory side of things, or at least to the intersection of sweet and savory (a fascination which can be directly traced to my grandpa introducing me to salty chocolate by way of his stashing bits of Chunky bars in jars of dry-roasted peanuts.)
Despite throwing in the profesh towel two years ago, (yeah I only gave it a year, so sue me) I never stopped mucking about with my beloved sourdough or composing elaborate birthday cakes for friends and colleagues. That is until now. Or, well, since I moved from London back to Amsterdam. It's not for any lack of wanting. It is, however, for lack of a proper oven.
Submitted for your approval, Exhibit A: my 'combi-oven.' See also: Exhibits B and C, my collection of grossly under-utilized sheet trays and mixing bowls (and my bread peel and lovely French rolling pin). In case you were wondering, it's a 'combi' of microwave and convection-cooking functionality in a countertop package. For non-cooking apartment-dwellers with galley kitchens, I suppose this is a perfectly adequate appliance. But speaking as someone who actually wore out the oven's ceramic heating element in her last flat...yeah, no. This fraudulent oven breaks my heart in some small way every day.
Make no mistake. I am determined and I am resourceful. I keep pushing this little cube to its limits. I've roasted chickens and baked banana breads. I've developed a very exciting new recipe for microwave mug cake. But guys, the struggle is real.
Every few weeks, I nurse my fridge-dormant starter back to life only to have to send my darling Yeastie Boy right back into his chilly hibernation. I can only bake six chocolate chip cookies at a time. And let's not even talk about trying to cram my Le Creuset in there for an all-day braise...
Just buy a full-sized oven and get on with it, you say. Of course that's an option. One afternoon at Ikea, and boom, I'm elbow-deep in brioche again. I could do that, yes. I won't bore you with the measurements of my mini-fridge, but it's not just the lack of space. The real issue is that baking can be a kind of compulsion for me, an obsession. Whole days end up organized around fermentation schedules. I get into a zone and before you know it, I'm at the bottom of an industrial sack of flour (specially ordered from a local miller omg please help me). But who will eat all of my experiments and dalliances? We are only two people with a cat who is wholly disinterested in carbs. I no longer have a captive audience office full of colleagues upon whom to hoist an early morning's bagel bake, or a café to which I deliver a smorgasbord of buns and loaves and muffins. I'm very thrifty with sourdough rusks, but at a certain point, you've reached peak panzanella.
Nevertheless, I just don't feel wholly myself without some lovin' from the oven. Baking every day was one of the most purely joyful experiences of my life. Just to be clear, I'm not looking to get back into the treats business, at least not full-time. I'm thinking about pop-ups, a few party cake commissions from friends, maybe, who knows what. All I know is that developing recipes, practicing techniques, trying and failing and trying again to make croissants...I crave it. I need it. No, wait–I knead it.
So who wants to help me figure out a way to make a lot of dough again?