🥐✨ This Weekend We Laminate ✨🥐 Alright, you all asked for it... so we're doing it. Now before anybody panics, I want you to think about where you've already been. This isn't some giant leap. It's simply the next step on a staircase you've already been climbing. 🧈 Remember Brioche Week? That's where you learned to handle butter. Adding it one piece at a time. Watching for the break. Keeping it cool so it works with the dough instead of against it. That was your foundation. 🥮 Then came Babka. You learned that cold, firm butter holds its shape, while warm butter melts into the dough and ruins your layers. Classic Sourdough Croissant: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/sourdough-croissants Yeasted Croissant: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/classic-french-croissants Keep the butter cold. Keep the layers distinct. Sound familiar? That's lamination in plain clothes. 🦓 Then there was Zebra Bread. Stack. Fold. Roll. Repeat. Every fold multiplied the layers. Chill before you roll. Go easy on the flour. Roll it with confidence. You've already done those movements with your own hands. ✨ Croissants are simply all three of those skills coming together. 🥐 Butter control from brioche. 🥐 Cold butter creating layers from babka. 🥐 Fold-and-roll technique from zebra bread. You're not starting from scratch. You're putting together things you already know. ❤️ We're gonna go slow, one fold at a time, and I'll walk you through every single step. 🛒 Before Saturday, gather a few things: 🧈 Good butter. The higher the butterfat, the better. European-style if you can find it. 🌡️ A cool kitchen, if you've got one... and a little patience. ⚖️ Your digital scale, because we're weighing everything. Bring your questions. Bring your nerves. Bring your butter. By Saturday afternoon you'll be holding something flaky, buttery, and golden that you made with your own two hands.

🌙 Last night around midnight I went to feed my starters for a little experiment I've been wanting to run. Stiff starter, two jars, side by side. One fed with water, one fed with pineapple juice. Same flour, same ratios, same temperature, same everything except the liquid. Except my kitchen scale had other plans. ⚖️ Scale Trouble The display started flashing "unstable." Then the numbers just started running. 12g. 47g. 3g. 89g. Whether there was anything on the scale or not. I sat there for a few minutes trying to coax it back to life, recalibrate, reset, the whole routine. Nothing. So I did what bakers did before digital scales existed. I went by volume. A quarter cup of liquid in each jar (water in one, pineapple juice in the other), and a half cup of flour each. Stirred them stiff, capped them, and went to bed. 🔬 What I Found This Morning Nine and a half hours later, both jars had risen to about the same height. Domed caps, pulled away from the sides of the glass, looking active. From the front, they looked like twins. But from the top, the story changed. 🔹 The pineapple jar (left): glossy, slack surface. Bubbles broken open. Bigger, more open holes throughout the body when you look through the side of the glass. The structure had given way. 🔹 The water jar (right): tighter, drier surface. You could still see the swirl pattern from how I mixed it. Smaller, more uniform bubbles. The structure was still holding. 🧠 Why This Happens Pineapple juice brings two things plain water doesn't: sugar and acid. Sugar gives the wild yeast a faster food source, so fermentation accelerates. Acid drops the pH and starts breaking down the gluten structure. Together they push a starter past peak faster and degrade its structure even at stiff hydration. Same rise height. Completely different internal behavior. 📌 The Takeaway Pineapple juice is a great tool for waking up a brand new starter in the first few days. The acid suppresses the bad bacteria long enough for your wild yeast to get established. But once you have a healthy, mature starter, pineapple juice isn't doing you any favors. It just accelerates fermentation and breaks down the structure you've worked to build.

This is that seven minute score on my little baby yeast water loaf.

His name is @David Smith . We crossed the line today, bakers. One thousand members. And the seat we'd been holding for that milestone moment now belongs to David, out of Bothell, Washington. David found us through a friend, joined quietly, and is already showing up. He loves fishing, cooking, and learning Greek. The kind of person who appreciates a process that takes time and rewards attention. That tracks with bread, doesn't it. David, welcome. You picked a good crew. Jump into the feed when you're ready and introduce yourself. Tell us what you're hoping to bake, what you've already tried, or what's been giving you trouble. Whatever you bring, this room will meet you where you are. To the rest of you: this milestone belongs to all of us. Every conversation, every Saturday bake-along, every loaf you posted whether it worked or didn't. Every time you answered another baker's question before I got there. That's what one thousand looks like. Shannon at 800. Amanda at 900. David at 1,000. And we're just getting started. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

Most bakers make the same mistake when they try tangzhong for the first time. They cook the paste right, then add it to the dough on top of all the water their recipe already calls for. The result is a sticky mess they can barely shape. The water in your tangzhong counts toward your total hydration. Don't add it. Subtract it. A 1000g recipe at 70% hydration uses 700g water total. Pull 5% of your flour for tangzhong, that's 50g flour and 250g water for the paste. Your main dough then uses 950g flour and 450g water. Same hydration, just redistributed. I put together a full visual guide that walks through the ratio, the right paste consistency, and why 5% is the sweet spot for sandwich loaves. 🔗 https://vowful-lichen-9kw3.here.now/ If you've been fighting tangzhong dough, tell me where it went sideways in the comments. Odds are it was the math, not your technique. ~ Henry ⭐🔥