Dear Breadfriends (10/28/2014). Apologies and absent Sonderbrotausstrahlung.

October 28, 2014

Dear Breadfriends, Crustfund Members, and Fellow Travelers,

Our bread is a little sad today, and so are we. None of the loaves looks as beautiful as we would like it to. None has the loft or the shine. None has the Sonderbrotausstrahlung that we look for each day.

We apologize for that. We thrive on making beautiful bread for you, and when we can’t we feel it.

Why and how does it happen? Bread is such a multi-faceted material it’s hard to give a simple answer. It could be the breath of cold that blew through the bakery night before last. That chill might have knocked back the initial fermentation, setting the whole process on its heels. It might have been something about the wheat or flour—it was the very last of the wheat from last year’s crop, but why that should matter we don’t know. It could have been a host of things.

But it’s not all bad. This kind of thing reminds us that baking, at least the way we do it, is no mechanical or heartless process. Instead, it’s about cooperation, about becoming friends with flour and microbes and fire. And that’s a beauty.

Till next week, when, we hope, all the bread will shine,

Stef