Baking on the road, part II

Hmmm... yes, well... baking on the road seemed like a good idea. My starter made it fine, but I guess I didn't really think about how many little things I take for granted in my home kitchen. Yes, I knew I was going to be without a baking stone or my lame, but those were the least of my problems. Not being able to find a warm enough spot in the house for the loaves to rise enough set me back a bit. Not being able to find semolina flour or regular corn meal (only course ground) didn't help either, and I was unwilling to damage someone else's iron skillet to make the necessary steam, so the crust was going to suffer. But it was the oven that set me back the most. Well, that and the smoke detector, which screamed like a banshee as soon as I opened the door to put the bread in the oven (I guess they don't turn their oven up to the max as often as I do). In the end, the bread got tossed out. The bread may have been salvageable, but after airing out the house for 20 minutes to get the smoke detector to stop I wasn't in the mood. I'm chastened. If I try to bake again this week I'll bake something simpler in a loaf pan.

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... can be very tasty! Truly!

Add a bit of butter and sugar if you like, or not. Still, beats no bread at all. :-) Good luck!

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines too. I still have some of the starter that I refreshed this morning, so I may try that tomorrow evening. This time I'll top the oven out at 425 or so though. It is too cold to have to air the house out again.

> My starter made it fine, but I guess I didn't really

> think about how many little things I take for granted

> in my home kitchen.

We volunteered to make various fresh bread and bread-based products for my sister's annual Easter brunch fest last year. Her house is 300 miles from ours, so it is a large-scale overnight trip for us.

We did manage to get everything made, but it required me to impose a limit of 1/3 the usual luggage allowance per person and fill up half the minivan cargo space with what amounted to my entire baking kitchen! Nothing like hauling your baking stone around for 5 days...

sPh

Yep, don't you realize how much you take for granted when you try to bake elsewhere? I know I have things set up just how I like them--even baking outside with the mud oven gets me flustered as I don't have the set up for scoring/loading quite right yet.

One time we were house-sitting and I preheated the oven to 450 degrees for pizza--when I opened the door to put it in the bottom of the oven was on fire!

Yikes! Yeah, before leaving my house I was thinking to myself how cool bread baking is because you don't need all sorts of expensive gear. Which is true, but I do have a lot of inexpensive and/or improvised gear, like the floury dish towels, my lame, spray bottle, parchment paper, semolina flour, my baking stones from Home Depot, and so on. Without it (and just being in an unfamiliar kitchen), I was pretty lost.

I have had the smoke alarm experience while doing the NYT bread method...

I can empathize with your experience, it seems like so much more work in someone elses kitchen.