The other day I was deep into making Danish pastries. You know how it goes: phone propped up on the counter, recipe pulled up, flour everywhere, hands covered in butter. I'm going back and forth between my phone and the stand mixer. Then I realize something. The milk in my fridge is 2%, not whole milk. Now I'm standing there with sticky hands thinking: Can I use 2% milk? I've got some heavy cream. Could I add a splash to make up the fat difference? Here's the problem. I couldn't ask my recipe. Well, now you can. I put Krusty inside your recipes. Most of you know Krusty. He's our little mascot, our concierge. I've been working to give him a complete understanding of every recipe in the Pantry. And now when you're baking, you can actually have a conversation with him. Click the Bake with Me button on any recipe. You'll see a little microphone icon. That's Krusty. Here's what he can do: - Walk you through the recipe step by step - Keep track of where you are so you don't lose your place - Let you check off steps by voice as you complete them - Answer questions about the recipe you're working on - Convert between metric and volume measurements - Scale recipes up or down - Explain any technique or terminology you don't recognize - Set timers right from the recipe - Tell you if you can refrigerate your shaped cinnamon rolls tonight and bake them tomorrow He knows the recipe. He's not guessing. Ask him anything about it. Why I Built This A member told me the other day she was trying to bake a loaf of bread with two kids running around and one on her hip. She found a recipe online and had to fight through pop-ups, ads, and a life story about someone's grandmother just to find the ingredient list. Then when she finally got to the instructions, they were so bare bones she didn't know where to start. That's why I built this. Because I was just as annoyed with that process as you are. The Recipe Pantry now has over 40 recipes, and I'm adding more every week. I'm pulling recipes from my cookbooks and converting them to this format because it's better. It's cleaner. It's actually designed to help you bake.

I want to tell you about my book, Sourdough for the Rest of Us. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I gave this book away free for a year. Amazon just won't let me price it lower than about $6.08 It started as an answer to a question in this group. That answer became a blog post. The blog post became a newsletter. The newsletter became a handbook. And then it became this book. It's everything I wish I knew when I started. Not because I'm a baking genius. I've just messed up enough loaves to know where to step and where not to. Bread isn't mystical. I'm not a guru. It's been around for thousands of years and it belongs to all of us. I just wrote it down. If you don't have a copy, here's the link. Read it. It'll help. 📚 https://a.co/d/cYaNTlK

A lot of you came from Facebook. I run Baking Great Bread at Home over there, 40,000+ members, and I love that community. But I want to be honest about something. On Facebook, you often get one of two things: criticism without substance or compliments without critique. Someone posts a loaf and the comments are either "Beautiful!" when there's clearly something going on, or unhelpful jabs that don't teach you anything. People mean well. They're trying to be kind. But kindness without honesty doesn't make you a better baker. This is a different place. Crust & Crumb Academy is exactly that: an academy. This is where you come to hone your skills and get better. That means when you ask for feedback, you're going to get it. Real feedback. Specific feedback. The kind that actually helps you improve. I'll always be kind. I'll always be encouraging. But you're not going to get empty platitudes from me. If I see something in your crumb, your shaping, your scoring, I'm going to tell you what it is and how to fix it. That's what coaches do. And I want you to do the same for each other. When someone posts a bake and asks for critique, give them something useful. Tell them what you see. Ask questions. Share what's worked for you. That's how we all get better. This is a teaching environment. We're not here to collect compliments. We're here to make better bakers. Perfection is not required. But growth is the goal. Let's get to work. ~Henry