back to the dough

2026 · 02

Went lazy over the winter and just bought bread for a while. It's easier, it's fine, nobody suffered. But somewhere in the cold months I started missing the actual ritual of it, the slow Saturday morning, so this week I mixed a dough for the first time in a couple of months.

Strange how much my hands just knew. Two years back I was weighing everything to the gram and hovering by the oven like it might turn on me. Now I don't really think about it. Slack, sticky dough and an oven cranked up near its limit, the two things the neighbour drummed into me back when my loaves came out like doorstops. That one conversation basically rebuilt the whole thing.

This one came out good. Open crumb, a crust that actually cracked as it cooled on the rack. M. sawed the heel off before it was properly cool, which is against the rules, and called it the best one yet. It wasn't, but it was good, and it was nice to be back at it.

I don't really measure anymore. Noticed that this week.