Certain popular baking professionals have been advocating for the looooong creaming method. If you haven't heard about it, that's where you continue to cream the butter and sugar for ten minutes or more before proceeding to the next stage of the recipe. The argument is that you need that long to punch all the holes in the butter for maximum rise and optimum crumb.

I've experimented some with this, and have to say there is some method to that particular madness. Although, I can't say if the time is worth the increase in quality, or where the two might balance out. (I'd love to hear your opinion.)

The paste or reverse creaming method, I have not played with much at all. But, scientifically speaking, it makes a lot of sense. If you haven't done it before. it's where you add the flour, sugar, and leavening to the mixer, skip the liquid for the time being, and allow the butter to completely integrate, Just like you are rubbing in butter for biscuits or pastry. Only when you get to a fine sandy consistency from the dry and butter mixture, do you add the combined liquids.

To me this makes a ton of sense for cakes. Why? Because once the flour is entirely coated with fat (the butter), it will take gluten a long time to form after the addition of the liquid. So there's way less worry about over-mixing. In fact, the danger becomes the opposite. And I would rather have to mix until smooth than worry about creating too much gluten with one more stir.

Just a few minutes ago, I posted the Cinnamon Swirl Bread recipe.

It's a bit of an odd one with extra bench proofing, stretching, rolling out, etc, but I like it because of the consistency of the crumb. Someday I may try chilling the dough between steps and see if I get some unexpected form of lamination. LMK if you've done anything like that and what the results were.

I felt certain I'd already posted it. In fact, it should have been recipe four or five instead of number eight. I think in all the testing for the doughnuts/donuts, it got lost somewhere. Anyway, the loaves have already been devoured, and now that I've written it out and posted it, I wish I had more.

I've been working on a Sourdough Bialy recipe, trying out several reputable recipes and replacing the store bought yeast with my living colony. One of my favorite resources for technical recipes (along with explanations), had a Bialy recipe, so I decided to give it a shot.

SPOILER - it failed miserably.

But why did it fail so completely? Well, gentle readers, it was because of something we've all been warned about over and over again, but I never took seriously. "Keep salt away from yeast, you might affect your rise."

I've ignored this advice and never had a problem.

Bialys, for a yeasted dough, contain a lot of salt. If you've never had one, they're kind of a cross between a pretzel and a bagel. And, this particular recipe, I believe had a misprint, asking for 2 tbsp salt instead of 2tsp. Combine this with the fact that sourdough starter doesn't have nearly the pop of store bought yeast, and the resulting dough just sat there no matter how long I waited or how I encouraged it. After 24 hours (yep, I let it go just to see what would happen), I got a few measly bubbles from a very active starter. I even cooked them, and they were little better than a salt lick.

My take-away from this is that you actually can damage your yeast with salt, BUT it seems to take a 3-5% salt by weight to do any real damage. So, I will continue to ignore the yeast/salt warning.. Except in heavily or moderately salted doughs when I'm using my starter.

Taking for granted anyone reading this has a mixer, bowls, their favorite wooden spoon, and an endless supply of parchment paper, there are a few items even the most languid of bakers shouldn't do without:

1 - Food Scale: I will always tell you if exact measurements don't matter in a recipe, but, let's be honest, baking is a precision sport. Must have features: measures in metric and imperial, has a TARE button, easy to clean, can handle five pounds without throwing an error. (My old scale [not pictured] would error out if my bowl was too heavy when weighing out flour for two loaves of bread. Guessing about that much flour is NOT fun.)

2 - Bench and Bowl Scrapers: If I could pick just one, I'd take the dollar store bowl scraper, but I use one or both almost every time I bake. They handle soft dough, prevent deflation, keep things tidy, cut, and a dozen other things. The stainless bench scraper pictured has a couple cool features: clearly marked rulers on both sides and a helpful conversion chart.

3 - Instant Read Thermometer: I don't love most cakes. Why? Because they're universally over-baked in order to get to the golden brown color people expect. I pull mine at 195F/90.5C. That means they sometimes don't look done, but they certainly taste better that way. I also wouldn't attempt to make my own jam, marmalade, custard, or curd without one.