So, these past many months, I took over making bread at home.
After almost a year, I'm now able to make several types of bread.
I consider myself some one who only cook "survival food", aka food you eat to survive. Looking back, it is the same with any skill that you want to learn.
For me, that is kind of an accomplishment
At first, you kind of suck at it. Remember learning how to drive?
Unless you opt for an automatic transmission license, I'm sure you wonder why in the world would God made man with 2 legs, and engineers made cars with 3 pedals.
Phase 1. The "I don't know phase"
The chef at home coached and supervised a few times. I know nothing and all I wanted was the exact recipe in grams. Pop all the ingredients in exactly and get nice bread.
Except cooking is not an exact science, like engineering. More on that later but as you get better, you don't need exact measurements. You developed skills and experience, you see.
Phase 2. I get the hang of it
After the few bread, I start to get the hang of it. I think I got it. Oops, nope ruined the next one. Over confidence. Start over. Let's make sure I don't miss anything in the recipe.
Phase 3. Let's try something different
Okay, so I more or less can get it right 85 - 90% of the time. Occasionally, the bread doesn't rise that well. I wonder what happened.
"....... putting in too much oats can mess up the recipe.
Phase 4. Decently good, its kind of boring now
So from the basic recipe, now within my menu, there's pumpkin bread, sweet potato bread, bread with raisins, and the extra special bread with multi vegetable fiber.
At this stage, I learn how to eyeball and feel the dough. Add more liquid if necessary. No exact measurement needed. It's kind of difficult to estimate the water content in fresh foods anyway.
When you do it often enough, you don't need the recipe anymore.
Now I know why the chef at home can eyeball so many recipes. It is a skill and experience.
That's the same with any skill you want to pick up.
At first you may be excited but likely lousy at it. After some time, as you get better, you begin to feel excitement. Hey, I'm getting the hang of it. Once you can do it repeatedly, it is no longer a challenge.
It may even seem boring. But there is always a new mountain to climb so to speak.
So, you can learn more recipes, or learn something else totally different. And the cycle begins a new.
Lessons
You can be excited or bored at different phases. Maybe phase 2, 3 or even 4.
I found that the learning phases, when things can go wrong, are also the exciting phases. Especially, when I wait in anticipation and hope the bread comes out nice and puffy.
Now that I'm relatively good (for my own standard), it's not so much of a challenge anymore. I just want to crank bread out and eat it.
James Woo
