Comment by kendallpark | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kendallpark | Hacker News Reader

During college I did something similar to what the author did--volunteered at a local bakery to learn the secrets of bread making. That volunteer work lead to a summer job.

A few sporadic notes from the experience:

- Good bread is less about secret ingredients and more about process.

- Milling flour on site was how we made moist loaves with little to no added oil. The natural oils in the wheat go rancid quickly after the wheat is milled. Similarly, nutrient levels tank.

- Bakery hours are awful. In order to have fresh loaves for the day, the sponge person is up before 3am mixing everything for the first rise.

- Breadmaking is an art. Ingredient proportions are more like guidelines and the actual amount of flour/water/etc can vary wildly with the weather/climate.

- Random skill acquisition: I can "dual-wield" loaves of bread on the kneading table (aka knead two loaves at the same time for higher throughput). Also I can roll rolls. Which is harder than you'd think.

Zero regrets with the experience. A few days ago I realized we forgot to buy buns for the pulled pork sandwiches we were making and I was able to look up a recipe and make my own from scratch. The pulled pork was good, but people flipped out about how fantastic the buns were.

I used to live a couple of doors down from a traditional family run bakery in Bury St Edmunds (sadly closed in 98 or 99).

Bakery hours were a mixed blessing, the wonderful smell of fresh baked bread needs no introduction, but in the summer when I left my windows open at night the smell alone would wake me far too early — not really complaining, the towns other dominant odours are from a brewery and a sugar beet processing plant.

Interesting: so when you say 'no added oil' you mean just the fresh-milled flour, salt, water and sourdough/yeast?

Pretty sure GP means yes. Bread literally just needs flour, salt, yeast, and water. White flour has little to no oil. Whole wheat flour does but the oils to go rancid too quickly. You don't need just-milled whole wheat flour to make good whole wheat bread. White flour doesn't need any added oil.

Edit: Anyone interested in learning to cook, Americas Test Kitchen Cooking School (And also Cooks Illustrated Cooking Science and Science of Good Cooking) would probably be good for much of HN's audience. It is much more of a cooking "textbook" than most cookbooks. It explains what you are doing and why you do it instead of just a big list of recipes. There is also Modernist Cuisine but those are really pricey.

The Food Lab is a great resource that also delves into the science behind the recipes and experiments to see what works, e.g. taller popovers, best taste and texture for chocolate chip cookies, etc.

For bread, I don't think you can get much better than Tartine Bread [1]. Chad Robertson takes you through making bread from just flour, salt and water by making your own yeast starter.

For general cooking, I will also recommend La Technique [2], its short and digestible (puns always intended) increments of learning that, while old, are fundamental and classic.

If you can work through La Technique and something like Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking [3] (Which is great, but, very dense) you could move on to (and invest in -- they really are expensive) Modernist Cuisine [4], for which I think you need a good basic education on the fundamental building blocks of cooking.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8H0FNW

[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812906101

[3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00WTIW93C/

[4] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0982761007

Anyone interested in the Modernist Cuisine might check their public library.

We've got copies here in the Seattle system.

These are great book recommendations!

I've been looking for stuff like this after reading "Cooking Comics" (by Lauren Thompson (Author) and Tsukuru Anderson (Illustrator)). It's a graphic novel/comic book but what's nice about it (beyond being aimed at beginners) is that they have this nice, systematic approach.

Start with stock, talk about why it's important and how it's done, move on to soups, demonstrate two types of soups, etc, etc. Each one has a simple recipe (and the ones I used worked well)

After reading it I'm totally jazzed about a 'cooking school textbook' sort of approach :)

I've found that the real skills gained with baking and cooking is when you stop and ask why. Anyone can follow a recipe. But books that explain the method behind the madness teach you more than simply how to make that one recipe.

I'm also a huge fan of America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated/Cook's Country (and I've found them to be extremely popular amongst engineers and science-types). During college a friend and I shared a subscription to their website catalog of recipes.

I'm ordering the Cooking School book as we speak. I'm currently trying to teach the bf how to cook and this seems like the perfect tool to go through.

Another recommendation I'd make for improvisational cooks/bakers is The Flavor Bible. It's great for "what do I do with these random ingredients in the fridge"?

Yeah! So the bakery's speciality was whole wheat, which has lots of natural oils. You'll find that a lot of recipes for home using store-bought flour (whether whole wheat or white) usually throw in few few tablespoons of melted butter or oil. My understanding is that this helps prevent the bread from drying out.

fyi you don't need oil to get moist loaves: source 20+ years of making naturally leavened and regular bread.

Do you simply omit the oil ingredients that are common in cookbooks?

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