Weekly Breadcrumb is a weekly series where I look back on what baking has taught me, shown me, or reminded me over the previous week. A lesson, or gift, I have received from baking.
This week, I made Kneippbrød with fresh-milled flour for the second time. The first time I made it, it turned out great – as you can see in this recent video I shared.
But this second time making it, I messed it up! Not sure what happened exactly – it’s possible my measurements were off.
My real mistake was just blindly (and too quickly) following the recipe, instead of paying attention to the dough. What happened was I added all of the flour as measured, and started mixing all of it with the liquid. What I should have done was to add in most of the measured flour, and mix more in until it felt right – and not let it get too dense.
I ended up having too much flour in there, and it felt like mixing cement. By that point, it was too late. Adding more liquid would have complicated matters. So, I went with it and got in a major workout mixing this extremely dense dough. In the end, it was edible but super dense.
Had I relied on my baking instincts, instead of being on a sort of baking auto-pilot, I would have added just enough flour and left out the excess. An important part of baking is to use good judgment – to pay attention to things like how warm your kitchen is, humidity levels, or things like knowing when to adjust ingredients or baking time…or noticing that your flour measurements weren’t so great!
Moral of the story: Trust yourself above all. Follow your recipe, but use your best judgments to make adjustments if needed. This applies to things outside of baking, of course! Read the instructions, but use your head.