I was in the middle of baking the poppy seed sourdough for tomorrow's Bake-Along when Ryan called. 📞"Dad, can you make me some garlic cheddar bread?" As if I had nothing else on my plate... I said yes. 😄 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ So here's how today actually went. 🎥 Filming all the stages of the poppy seed sourdough for the Academy ⚖️ Waiting on a new scale to arrive because the old one finally died this week, and yes... we had something of a funeral for it 💻 Working through my regular workday 🎙️ Prepping for Thursday's podcast with Dave, Counterculture with Dave and Henry 🍍 Folding a second dough using the pineapple juice starter from this week's experiment That's a lot of plates spinning. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ But here's the thing about real baking. It doesn't happen in perfect conditions with empty calendars and quiet kitchens. It happens between phone calls and deadlines... ...and a son who knows his dad won't say no to a request for fresh bread. 🧡 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔥 I pulled these out of the oven five minutes before podcast showtime. 🧄 Garlic 🧀 Sharp cheddar 🌿 Fresh basil 🥖 And that beautiful sourdough crumb underneath Knotted. Brushed. Baked until the cheese caramelized at the edges. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ryan got his bread. 🥖 The poppy seed loaf is resting. 🎙️ The podcast got recorded. 🍍 The pineapple juice starter is still pulling its weight. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This is what "trust the process" actually looks like. Not pristine. Just consistent. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📖 The full recipe is now live on the Recipe Pantry: 👉 https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/garlic-cheddar-basil-sourdough-knots ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ Perfection is not required. Progress is. ~ Henry ⭐🔥 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎓 This is a free resource for the members of Crust & Crumb Academy, built for bakers who come here not to get likes, but to get better. I am glad you have come to bake with us. 🧡

Bulk fermentation does not happen in the refrigerator. I’ll say it again for the folks in the back. What you’re doing when you put your dough in the fridge overnight is a cold retard. That’s not the same thing as bulk fermentation. Two different stages, two different jobs, two very different outcomes. Most bakers have been told these are interchangeable. They’re not. And once you understand the difference, your bread changes. I’m putting the full piece together now. Watch for it. ~ Henry ⭐🔥

Today I got to attend a bay shower celebrating a beautiful blessing about to arrive soon! I made a garlic butter focaccia and it was quite challenging. The theme was vintage Winnie the Pooh. It was so fun to make and so cool to try out this design. I’ve made focaccia bread before, but allowing myself to be creative made it such a fun experience. Aside from Pooh Bear missing an eyebrow after baking (seriously where’d it go? 😜), I am proud of my art work 😅 it tasted amazing! I brushed it with garlic butter before and after baking and drizzled honey on it! Delicious! Have you ever created art on your focaccia?

This is the bread that started everything for me. I baked this loaf every week for farmers markets, sometimes plain, sometimes loaded with herbs, cheese, or olives. It's the recipe that taught me how one dough can become a dozen different loaves. If you're just getting started or you want a reliable base to build on, this is it. Recipe: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/henrys-market-day-white?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share

@Jill Hart here is the Sourdough Granola recipe that I used. @Tracy Havlik gave it to me. Happy Baking!,, Sourdough Granola Yields approximately 1 1/4 pounds Ingredients 350 g (3 cups) old-fashioned oats 250-350 g (1 1/2-2 cups) chopped nuts (I use 100 g each of almonds and pecans, and 150 g of walnuts) 100 g (1/2 cup) neutral oil (I use avocado) 80 g (1/4 cup) pure maple syrup 55 g (1/4 cup) brown sugar 120 g (1/2 cups) sourdough discard 60 g (1/4 cup) water 1 g (1/2 tsp) ground cinnamon (I measure with my heart, so I use 3 g) 3 g (1/2 tsp) salt 150 g (1 cup) dried cranberries Instructions Preheat oven to 300 F Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (I use a 15”x21” sheet) Mix together oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, discard, water, cinnamon and salt. Whisk until smooth. Add oats, chopped nuts and/or seeds. Mix together with a rubber spatula until fully coated. Mix in the dried cranberries. Pour the granola on the prepared baking sheet. If you prefer larger clusters, press the granola down with the rubber spatula just before it goes into the oven. Place in preheated oven and bake for a total of 1 hour or until golden in color. Note, if you prefer larger clusters, flip the granola after the first 30 minutes, patting it back down. Otherwise, stir it every 15 minutes. Allow the granola to cool before breaking it into clumps.