Baking My Way
The Scent of Joy
My love of baking began as a child, memories of which are shiny happy feelings of time spent with my overly burdened mother, who despite being the primary caretaker of all eight of her children (which she also home-schooled), still found time to regularly make homemade chocolate chip cookies with each of us.
I don’t recall baking other things with her, at least not in the vivid way that I recall the cookies, but despite the overriding amount of noise I recollect from my childhood years, baking cookies with mom is a memory and feeling that all seven of my younger siblings and I share, that we each treasure.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and I still enjoy baking, but only in the past couple of years has it once again become the happy escape from chaos, that I remember it being with my mother. Somewhat “egged” on by shows like The Great British Bake Off, and more frequent travel to the pastry loving countries of Europe, I’ve become braver with my bakes.
What started with the classic Toll House recipe found on the back of their bags of chocolate chips, has grown to include French Macarons, Butter Croissants, Creme Brulee, Lemon Tarts, Swiss Rolls, and more. If I’m not baking to relieve stress, I’m probably watching a show about baking, or YouTube videos on how to perfect a particular baking technique.
My husband, while not having an avid sweet tooth like myself, has fully embraced my baking obsession. Living in an open concept condo, he has little escape from my baking shows and unending film of flour that coats our kitchen countertops. A beacon of patience and support, he recently purchased me a copy of a newly published book, that might just change my baking destiny.
Bread Between The Lines
I’ll admit, I have multiple books about baking. Beautifully bound hardbacks, full of photographs that make my mouth water, but don’t get used for baking. I might not be alone in this, and for all I know, the publishers never actually intended these publishing masterpieces to get anywhere near flour.
However, I read my copy of Poilane and was moved, deeply moved. How many times in your life do you expect to say that about a cookbook?!
After reading it, I felt a weird sense of responsibility, almost an obligation, to Apollonia Poilane herself, to use the recipes contained within the beautiful pages. So I decided to do just that, try and bake my way through it.
I Love Bread
While I’ve not had much success in the past, I’ve been working towards developing “bread” skills in recent months. Yesterday, a cool Sunday in November, I decided to try my hand at a breakfast recipe in my copy of Poilane.
I first posted this image on my Instagram account, and tagged the Poilane bakery in Paris. To my shock, they responded to it almost immediately with a heart emoji… a true modern love story.
I Read, You Saw, I Baked
I made one mistake in this recipe, which was that I didn’t allow enough space for the bread to rise in the pan before hitting the aluminum foil, leaving a slightly more compressed texture than it should have had. However, the texture was soft and spongy, despite my error, and left me feeling VERY impressed with myself for having made it. My husband and I sliced up some cheeses and cured meats, and ate most of it for dinner :)
My first attempt at black pepper Pullman Loaf!
Having only recently discovered the existence of this bakery, it’s now my goal to bake my way through the entirety of the book, prior to making my way to Paris, to actually visit Poilane Bakery. Over the next nine months or so, I’ll have to step-up my cardio game.
Have you read this book or something else that I should know about? Perhaps I should continue documenting my process of baking my way through this book?