After the summit this year, I joined as a member of the School of Traditional Skills. Alongside all of their classes, they hold challenges here and there. I missed the composting challenge this year but was right in time to join a baking challenge.
How it worked
They start their challenge by selecting a class, in this case, Kristin Nobles’ bread baking class, and challenging the members to recreate her recipes. Her class explained how to get good bread every time you make it, which I’ve been struggling with. My friend gave me a bread machine that no matter how many times I put in the same amount of the same ingredients, wouldn’t make the same rolls twice. After watching the video class series, I felt confident to put in my entries.
The Challenges
Before it started, we had to watch the video series and come up with any questions for a live questions and answers stream. The challenge started the day after the q +a. Challenge one was to make just standard bread.
It wasn’t perfect but it was definitely a good start. My hand mixer just couldn’t handle the dough and using a wooden spoon in its place was tougher than I had thought.
My next batch was a complete failure as I had forgotten to add any yeast packets. When realizing my mistake, google said I could just add the yeast after the fact and let the dough ferment in the fridge. We tried, it was a dense lump of dough with some yeast in it at that point. Lesson learned.
I didn’t win the weekly prize, but that’s fine. Marcus and I enjoyed trying out the different recipes this whole challenge.
Week Two
Week two’s challenge was rolls. Kristin said in her live stream that you could make rolls ahead of time and freeze them before their second rise to use later if you needed. That sounded like the perfect idea to use the rolls for a double use, one as a challenge entry and one for eating on Thanksgiving. Marcus and I set out to make my Hawaiian rolls to freeze for Thanksgiving, then set up the mixer to work on the rolls in the challenge recipes.
There was definite improvement, and we skipped a little ahead and made a star bread loaf too! It was delicious and by now, we’re up to four or five star breads. It’s helped a lot to learn how to read bread dough and make adjustments. But these rolls also aren’t challenge winners.
Week Three
We’re finishing week three this week and the challenge is inclusions. That means the good stuff! We made cinnamon rolls, monkey bread, another star loaf (which we gave to our neighbor), and garlic knots.
This has been my absolute favorite part of the challenge. But it’s definitely not meant for anyone trying to maintain a weight! We’ve been having so much fun trying all the recipes. I may not win a dough whisk or apron or Bosch mixer, but I’ve loved these past few weeks baking with Marcus and Leon.