Observer Online | Viewpoints | A Taste of Success

Posted Feb. 15, 2008

A Taste of Success

When I was a practicing photographer back in the days before digital cameras came around, I would spend hours in the darkroom working with chemicals and light-sensitive paper to get the best image I could create.

It was work that required a great attention to detail. Chemicals needed to be mixed in the right proportions, and temperature and timing was paramount.

Soon I found that I enjoyed cooking just as much, and probably for the same reason. Being a good cook requires attention to detail, the ability to manage time and temperature well, and the confidence to just wing it when nothing is coming together.

In particular, I have embraced the challenge of baking bread. I find baking bread to be much like the work I would do in my darkroom, because temperature, proportions and timing are everything, and the simplest mistakes can result in complete failure.

And failure is something I have become very good at when it comes to baking bread. Most of my loaves have turned out like bricks, great for building a shed but no so good for eating. Yeast and I do not seem to work well together.

My problem has been in getting the dough to rise in the second stage, and this is where temperature is key. But I have continued to slave away, making a loaf here and a loaf there, in a continuing effort to get the hang of making bread.

Baking bread is also a great thing to do with children, and my daughter, 5, and son, almost 3, love to help measure out the ingredients and add them to the mixture. Charlie gets to turn the mixer on and Audrey gets to measure out the ingredients.

The children can watch the dough rise (at least in the first stage) and have a bit of their creation fresh out of the oven (right before the rest of the loaf goes into the trash can).

But we had a break-through last weekend. We actually succeeded in making a good dough, although I ended up adding quite a bit more flour than the recipe called for to even out the dough. And, miracle upon miracles, the dough rose until it had doubled in size in a bowl, and then rose again while resting in a bread pan until it overflowed the pan.

I have never had dough rise as much as this dough expanded. It was a great triumph. The smell of the bread baking and the taste of the warm loaf fresh out of the oven was enough to fuel me for months.

Now that we've had a taste of success, it will be back to the kitchen this weekend for another round. After we master basic bread-making, maybe we can turn our attention to something easier, like a soufflé.