Snickerdoodle dough. (c)2013 Reese M.
Day 7: Dough
My Impression:
Cards on the table: I’m not a baker.
What do I mean by that? I mean that even when I bake the most basic thing in the world, like chocolate chip cookies, I will at the very least burn the bottom of the first batch. It’s a routine. Make the dough, burn the first batch, have a half decent second batch.
Reading this section on dough began to calm my fears of baking. It all sounds very easy when Ruhlman goes into how dough works. The thing that got me though was the following:
The final piece of the flour puzzle, and it’s an important one, is the fact that depending on a number of unpredictable conditions, the weight of specific volumes of flour differs.
…If there is a single reason why people fear baking, why bread seems daunting, and why a simple sponge cake can seem an arch enemy, it is because measurements of flour are almost always given as a volume, which is guesswork. (p.150)
That, my friends, blew my little mind. Although I don’t have an interest in suddenly baking all kinds of stuff, I would love to gain some experience, and have enough moderate success to know that if I wanted to bake cookies without the near-guarantee that I will burn the first batch, it would be a welcome change in my cooking life.
What’s more, there are several types of dough covered in this section. If you’re like me and you’re a little afraid of baking bread from scratch, the discussion on bread dough alone is almost worth the price of the entire book. I fully intend to attempt the Dutch Oven Bread recipe from this book after I finish this project, so I will let you all know how that turns out when the time comes.
Recipe: Snickerdoodles
I clearly placed these too close together. Luckily, they came out great. (c)2013 Reese M.
I realize that making snickerdoodles seems like the easy way out, and I suppose in some way it is. For me, I have such pent-up frustration about my burn-the-first-batch phenomenon, this was perhaps a smaller challenge…but a challenge nonetheless.
Still, it’s just cookies. So, the recipe is easy to follow, as expected. The great thing with these is that I didn’t burn the first batch. Just let me have this…it’s kind of a victory for me. 
The pretty finished product! (c)2013 Reese M.
I hope you are enjoying your endeavor as much as I am enjoying reading about it. I have wanted to get the book, just wasn’t sure about spending the money. You have made me see the light, I will get the book. Also, you mentioned baking bread, Mr. Ruhlman’s “Bread Baking Basics” app is a wonderful tool. I have used the Dutch Oven method to bake bread more than a dozen times, perfect every time.
Enjoy the journey!
“Bread Baking Basics” as an app?!?! Oh wow, clearly I have to get that!
Thanks for reading, Laurie. Yes, I really am enjoying going through this book. It’s already given me more confidence in the kitchen, and I didn’t really feel like I was lacking confidence in the beginning. The practice of reading through the introductory essays and then picking out even a single recipe from each section is a wonderful exercise, I really recommend it!
I hope that you enjoy the book as much as I have enjoyed it so far – there’s a lot of stuff that I’m going out of my way to not mention so that readers can discover it for themselves.
That’s funny, I was a little frustrated at your entry on butter because I wanted to read more about it, then I remembered, I really need to buy the book.
I am totally living vicariously through you through this seriesif posts. Thank you!
Haha! Then I’m doing my job! It’s definitely a balance because I don’t want to give too much away, because then why would someone get the book?