OK so if you’ve seen The Jerk with Steve Martin, you know exactly what I looked like yesterday. 😂 I’m scrolling through Skool, minding my own business, and I notice something next to my name. A star. I’m like… what is that? Had to look it up like Steve Martin flipping through that phone book. Here’s what that star means. And it’s a lot. So sit down. 🪑 ⭐ Top 1% of ALL communities on Skool. Out of 191,000 communities on this platform. That’s the star. That’s what it means. Let that sink in for a second. 🍞 #1 bread baking community on Skool. Nobody else on this platform is doing what we’re doing. Not even close. 🏆 And according to ProveWorth, which independently rates and certifies online communities… Crust & Crumb Academy is the #1 rated community on the ENTIRE platform. Not the #1 bread community. Not the #1 food community. The #1 rated community. Period. We are somebody now! 😂🏃‍♂️ But hold on. Let me be real with you. This is NOT MY STAR. There is nothing I could be doing in this community that would earn this if it weren’t for you. I could be in here posting the greatest content ever written about bread and if nobody showed up, nobody engaged, nobody helped each other, nobody posted their bakes, their wins, their “what went wrong” moments… there’s no star. There’s no 5-star rating. There’s nothing. 380+ bakers in just over two months. That’s what did this. YOU did this. 🙌 Every bake-along comment. Every photo, even the ones you almost didn’t post. Every time you jumped in to help someone before I could get there. Every single loaf that was a little better than the last one. That’s the stuff stars are made of. ✨ I wear this star proudly. But I wear it on YOUR behalf. And I promise to keep it shiny. 🌟 Now the word is leaking out, so I wanted you to hear it from me first. This community, what we’ve built together in two months, is something special. Coaching, not cheerleading. Progress, not perfection. Real bakers helping real bakers get better. Rare air. And we’re breathing it together. 💪🍞

I’m reading over the recipe and I’m not sure I can play along. I don’t have a standing mixer. I only have a hand mixer, definitely no bread hook. ☹️

I put together a full walkthrough of how we're approaching Cinnamon Rolls Week in the Academy, and why it's about more than just a recipe. This short video covers the three lessons packed into one bake: tangzhong, the cream pour, and enriched dough science. It also breaks down how we build understanding through the week so that by the time you touch flour on Saturday, you already know the why behind every step. If you baked focaccia with us last week, you'll see a direct connection. The olive oil brine that gave your focaccia that crispy golden crust? Same principle as the cream pour that creates a caramelized sticky-bun bottom on Saturday's cinnamon rolls. Two different breads. One concept. That's what thinking like a baker looks like. The video also covers how enriched dough works differently from the lean breads most of you are used to. Butter, sugar, eggs, dairy, they all change how your dough behaves. Understanding that changes how you approach every rich dough going forward. Watch it. Then come bake with us Saturday. https://www.skool.com/crust-crumb-academy-7621/about

Just another weekend bake-along in Crust & Crumb Academy. Vietnamese Banh Mi baguettes. Simple enough. Then the snow started falling in upstate New York. My internet in South Carolina started bouncing off satellites. And twenty-two bakers decided that weather, technical difficulties, and sticky dough weren't good enough reasons to quit. What happened next became one of the most engaged threads in our Academy's history: 449 comments over 22 hours, real-time troubleshooting through blizzards, side-by-side experiments with rice flour, melted butter disasters, fogged glasses, overproofed loaves celebrated as loudly as perfect ones, and a community that proved what bread baking looks like when you strip away the gatekeeping and Instagram perfectionism. This is that story. https://bakinggreatbread.blog/2026/02/01/vietnamese-banh-mi-bake-along/

I hope this is allow.. I just pulled these beauties from the oven..I was surprised. 😳 One of them the scoring was a little off. 🫣😀 Recipe 100g starter 500g BF 10g salt 375g water (one has butter inclusions, added during s/f's) 4 sets of s/f Bulk fermentation took 5-6 hours Cold retard 2 days Preheated oven 500 F Lower heat to 450 F Score place 2 ice cubs with lid bake for 7 minutes, then retrace score, bake with lid 25 minutes. Lower temp to 425F for 15-20 min without lid. Let cool and slice in the morning. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻