week 3268

not another sunday silence rhapsodisation

it is not a secret here how much i hold silence with much reverence, more so if it's on a sunday afternoon. sundays and silence go very well together in my book. especially since it serves as a respite for my exhausted self week after week of trudging through the sickeningly crowded streets of the metro, fighting for a seat on the bus, and enduring the hours-long traffic jams that it has become an ugly norm.  

that is, until the virus reared its ugly head and sent people scurrying to hide in their homes, totally changing the landscape of life as we knew it. it also gave my weekly respite a different meaning. because it means the silence is not just for sundays anymore, and my hearing can enjoy resting longer from all the noise that has thankfully become a thing of the not-so-distant past. 

let there be peace within

there is quiet, and then there is peace. and peace is something that is kinda hard to find these days. let's face it, every time we tune in to the news, every moment that we scroll down our social media feeds, there's always, always something that would make us go wtf. i don't need to enumerate those; all one needs to do is to google all that's happened so far this year. just today's headline is enough to make me bang my head on the wall. 

this old girl is not exempt from the rollercoaster of emotions that people experience lately. 

just like most people

and this old girl is not usually given to turning to food when she's feeling low. just turn on a bit of music, everything's good. but of course, everything's topsy-turvy for most of 2020 so i really found playing around with food quite soothing, especially bread baking.

quick breads are really easy to make. i've done lots of banana and lemon loaves years before in our oven until it conked out, then in the turbo broiler until that conked out too. it's only during the lockdown that i researched for ways to bake stovetop and thank goodness there is a plethora of techniques i could try, using regular cookware as a baking vessel. 

baking yeast breads is another challenge altogether. because for one, the first and last time that i baked bread using yeast was way back in college for a subject. and i don't even remember what my group made. ha. second, i am not really that confident in using yeast. what if the liquid i put the yeast in is too hot? or too cool? what if i kill the yeast? what if the bread doesn't rise? what if, what if. what. if. 

so i simply dove in after leaving the yeast in the cupboard for two weeks after buying it. i chose a simple pan de sal recipe that could be baked stovetop and i was SO EXCITED just to see the dough rise oh, so, beautifully. talk about simple pleasures, huh. yet even if i followed the recipe to the letter, the pan de sal didn't look nor taste anything like the usual fragrant pan de sal we could buy from our friendly neighbourhood panaderia. the outside wasn't brown and crusty, the bread collapsed, it smelled strongly of yeast, AND it stuck to the roof of my mouth when i tried one. it was still edible, thank God for that. 

my second try in baking bread was dinner rolls. this one was definitely better in terms of its size, texture, mouthfeel, and taste. but there was still that yeasty smell so i had to ask my friend M how to get rid of it. after a bit of powwow, i learned that the time of baking plays a huge factor. it was already deep into the summer season when i started baking breads with yeast. and of course i just had to start on my breads oh, just around lunch time. in the heat of the day. so even if my dough rose really nicely, the room temperature was just above normal so naturally the smell of the yeast was stronger, thus affecting the bread's taste as well. "kaya madaling araw ang gawaan ng pan de sal!" chastised my friend. 

not long after that, i chanced upon gemma stafford of bigger bolder baking while watching recipe videos on facebook. it was her recipe video for flatbread which i tried making when we had a persian night not long after. the flatbread turned out well, and since then i've watched several of her videos until i saw gemma's gold mine of a bread recipe: crazy dough.

the name itself was hook enough; and then hearing gemma's own words that goes, "one dough with endless possibilities", well, i'm sunk. i just had to try it. 

so far i've done a couple of cheesy loaves and several pizzas out of the crazy dough. i even tried using it for ube cheesedesal which turned out okay except for the taste. i would have to do something about that before trying it again. i also tried baking a little bit of tiny pan de sal in the oven toaster. it was great with hummus and pesto especially when i sliced them into little rounds and toasted them some more. but the cheesy loaf and pizza were a definite hit with my family which inspired me to bake more.

i had an epiphany while i was kneading my nth crazy dough: baking is very soothing. it's as if the gentle motion of folding egg whites into the batter, or the focused, firm kneading of bread dough have a calming effect that drives all troubling thoughts away. this realisation led me to believe that this is one of the reasons why the baking aisles of groceries are practically empty since the early days of the lockdown. 

for the longest time i fancied myself being out of touch with the world. an alien, if you may. never wanted to go with the crowd. but now in this season of covid, i have never been more connected with people even if it's just through baking.

good nite.