jamieburns•2mo agoProlific Poster

A customer in my shop last Tuesday told me my sourdough was 'too perfect' and it made me think.

She said, 'I can tell you used a scale for everything, but I miss the little bubbles and cracks my grandma's loaf always had,' which got me wondering if chasing technical perfection is making my bread lose some soul, so what's your take on balancing consistency with that homemade feel?

3 comments

3 Comments

beth_butler751mo ago

Is it really that deep though? Hah, if only my sourdough had a deep soul instead of just a deep tang. The thing is, I used to be the type who'd weigh every single gram and freak out if my crust wasn't perfectly crackled. Then I started leaving my scale in the drawer on purpose, scooping flour like a wild woman, and honestly? The loaves with the wonky bubbles and the random splits are the ones people fight over at the farmer's market. So I guess my line is when I stop enjoying the process, cause if I'm stressing over a 0.1 gram difference, that's when the bread loses its soul and becomes more like a math problem. Don't you find that the imperfect ones have a better story to tell?

sandra_black2mo ago

Is it really that deep though?

ivanb412mo ago

But like, what's your line for "deep" @sandra_black? If we're talking about the way this stuff actually affects real people's daily lives, that seems pretty serious to me. It's not just some abstract idea.