Depth over breadth to dig a foundation

I’ve decided I’m continuing to work on these five quick breads. I’m going to be a master of them. The way to master anything is to put a lot of time in, sure, and I’ve known since starting this project that I wanted to get back to being someone others thought of as a ‘baker’ (or a ‘cook,’ but for now it looks like we’re sticking with baking). But when I first started this quick breads project, I had kind of been thinking that I would run this series of lemon bread, apple spice bread, chocolate chip bread, banana nut bread, blueberry bread, and then I would move on to new things. But I really enjoyed making these breads, and I think ‘sweet bread’ is a better idea of something to be bringing into the office than ‘cake,’ or brownies or other similarly sweeter treats, and they certainly take a lot less investment on my part than if I went in the more healthy direction and did, say, real breads.

Anyway, I realized that if my goal really is mastery of baking, it makes more sense to do the repetition; I can experiment with the way salt affects flavor, say, by comparing the results of salted and unsalted butter in the same recipe, or get a more nuanced appreciation for the different ingredients by comparing two different recipes for banana nut bread. It’s easier to learn the details if you’re repeating the same activity. If I just started flitting around and trying out even more new things to bake, it might be harder for me to start honing my skills.

So, I’m making the Apple Spice Bread again today. I think with some of the others I might try new recipes, but with this one I had just been so so happy with it that I’m changing nothing. I’m looking forward to cleaning the bowl out when the bread is in the oven, getting to lick the little dribbles of batter. It’s such a tasty, flavorful one; I love spices. I was going to take this week off from cooking and baking and just gear up for thanksgiving, but as I was thinking about getting back into this project, I was just so excited about it that I wanted to already get back into things. That’s a good sign, when you’re just so eager to get started on a project that you want to get into it earlier than plans call for.

Excitement is one of those feelings that you should always pay attention to :).

You never know until you give it a sniff!

Featured Recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/fresh-apple-spice-bread-158514