Kevin Warnock

I got a great cookbook for Christmas from my wife’s aunt Nancy. It’s published by the cookware store Sur la Table. The name is The Art & Soul of Baking, and the author is Cindy Mushet. This is a beautifully printed book that’s fascinating to read. I learned an enormous amount by reading the first 71 pages, which tell the reader that All Purpose Flour is better thought of as No Purpose Flour, as it’s a compromise blend not best suited for anything. When I went to Safeway in search of actual bread flour, I discovered they only stock one brand in one size, but have numerous brands and sizes of ‘no purpose flour.’

The pictures are nearly works of art. The photographer experimented with shallow depth of field in many of the shots, which I’ve not seen done in a cookbook so well. Some of the shots even have blurred motion in them, such as when showing how to use a rolling pin.

I wanted a bread machine for Christmas, but I didn’t get one. I did get a bread machine specific cook book from my mother, but I’ve not had a chance to use it yet. I don’t know what machine to get, as I’ve read some of the machines can hop off the counter by themselves. If anyone has any good suggestions, please let me know.

For my first loaf, I made the first recipe in the book, for plain white bread. This was no Wonder bread however. I discovered it takes a lot of time to make bread, and I had to refrigerate the dough overnight since it got too late to bake the bread. The dough rose further in the cool refrigerator, but when I took off the plastic wrap, it sank an inch within 30 seconds. It never regained its height, so the loaf was shorter than the loaf pan, when it was supposed to be higher.

Here’s a video I shot of my first loaf of bread. I sliced it while it was hot so the video would look especially appealing.