The Bread Challenge
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." - William Shakespeare
"Live today ...for tomorrow may never come!" - Luke
Welcome to the Bread Challenge! Similar to other bread baking challenges, we are a group of enthusiastic amateur and professional bakers of artisan breads ...coming together to bake our way through Jeffrey Hamelman's landmark work, Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes .
As we bake together, we learn together, share the fruits of
our labor together and post our
experiences in our own *Baker's Blogs for all to see
and enjoy.
*NOTE: Maintaining a blog is not
required for participating in the challenge
Anybody can join the challenge. There are no requirements. You can go as fast or slow as you want, but from Baguettes with Poolish through the braided Six Point Star, the challenge is to **bake nearly all of the recipes in Jeffrey's book ...but with Chapter 10, Decorative and Display Projects, being entirely optional. Think of Chapter 10 as a bonus challenge for those willing to make the attempt. There is no requirement to "keep up" or even to bake through the book in the same order, although I suspect most will start at the beginning (Baguettes with Poolish) and work their way back. Note: If baking all 80+ recipes in Jeffrey's book seems a bit daunting, please do feel free to concentrate on whichever chapters you would like to bake, and post-pone those that do not hold as much interest for you. We would love to see your participation regardless of what you choose to bake.
*NOTE: You really don't have to bake ALL of the recipes in the book ...as you can see in the recipe list, you only have to choose one (sometimes two) from each main group of recipes, and we're not doing any of the decorative recipes in Chapter 10 unless you wish to.If you would like to join us...
- Use our Join the Challenge form to send me a name, nickname, title, description, and (optional) location that you would like us to use when listing a link to your web site or blog if you are going to maintain one. If not maintaining a blog or web site, please contact us anyway and we'll list your name (nickname etc) along with the links as well.
- (Optional) Establish a blog where you will share your experiences and photos with us. Photos showing your work in producing a particular bread and/or finished loaves would be outstanding ...but not required. (Please do not post actual recipes in your blog or web site!)
- Buy the book and go bake! Here's a recipe guide for your reference: Recipe Guide
If you are blogging, we'll add your site alphebetically on our blogs
page and look forward
to seeing your work! Future: This web site is new new new...
I will be adding a world-map to show where baker's are
located, a list of recipes that link to the entries in my blog (as they
become completed), etcetera. Also note that I am no literary
giant or creative genious. If you would like to
write/re-write or in some way contribute to this web site, then by all
means do! This includes changing or re-writing the rules,
providing suggestions for the web site, ecetera. Use our
contact form (or PM tananaBrian at The Fresh Loaf Forums)
to let me know how you would like to be involved or what your feedback
is.
