Look at how far we've come. We've learned to watch the dough, not the clock. We've worked on shaping and scoring. We've handled wet dough and figured out how to manage it without panicking. We've built our first preferments and seen what a poolish can do. Now we're going to take everything you've learned and build on it. This week we're baking the pretzel loaf. Two tracks. Same loaf. Yeasted with a poolish if you don't have an active starter, or sourdough if you do. Same hydration, same flour weight, same bath, same bake. Just two different ways to get the dough started. Here's what we're adding to your toolkit this week. The alkaline bath. Most home bakers have never used one. It's the step that turns a regular loaf into a pretzel loaf. Three things happen in that bath, and once you understand the why, you'll never look at a pretzel the same way again. Scoring an alkalized crust. The bath seals the surface tight, which means your score has to do real work. We'll get into where to place it and how deep to go. Reading the bake. The five-minute butter rule. What success looks like when you cut into the crumb. The three most common mistakes and how to fix them before they happen. Here's the thing about doing this together that you can't replicate baking alone in your kitchen. When you bake on your own, you only see your loaf. You don't know if your bulk fermentation went too long or too short until you've cut into it. You don't know what underproofed looks like at hour four versus hour six. You don't know if your bath was strong enough until the loaf comes out pale and you're not sure why. In a bake-along, you're seeing dozens of doughs at every stage at the same time. Someone's hours ahead of you. Someone's hours behind. Someone's about to make the same mistake you almost made yesterday, and you can warn them. Someone else figured something out you didn't, and now you know it too. You get exposed to bread you might never have tried on your own. The pretzel loaf is a perfect example. How many of you would've boiled a bread dough in alkaline water if you weren't doing it as a community? Probably not many. But you'll do it this Saturday, and your kitchen's going to smell like something it's never smelled before.

You sliced into it. Looked beautiful from the outside. Then the knife came out smeared and the crumb compressed like wet clay. That's a gummy loaf. Here's what most bakers get wrong: they blame hydration first. Nine times out of ten, that's not it. Today's video walks through the seven real causes and the four questions you should ask before you ever touch your water percentage again. Drop a comment with your worst gummy loaf story. We've all had one. Henry ⭐🔥

Saturday morning, Maureen was short on levain. She’d already added what she had to the dough and wasn’t sure if she’d thrown the whole thing off. Instead of guessing, she pulled up the Recipe Pantry and asked Crusty. He ran the numbers, gave her the adjusted plan, and told her what I tell every baker who hits a snag: watch the dough, not the clock. She kept baking. The loaves came out clean. Two things worth pulling out of this: One, the moment you realize you’re short on starter is not the moment to walk away. Inoculation percentage is flexible. Time will adjust to whatever you actually used. The dough will still tell you when it’s ready if you know what to look for. Two, Crusty is built into the Recipe Pantry for exactly this reason. You don’t have to wait for me. You don’t have to wait for anyone. Open the recipe, ask the question, get the math. He pulls from every recipe in the pantry and every teaching note we’ve put in there. Maureen, well done. This is the kind of thinking that builds a real baker. If anyone hasn’t put Crusty through his paces yet, next time something goes sideways mid-bake, ask him. That’s what he’s there for. www.recipepantry.app Henry ⭐🔥

Last night around 9:30 the pot rack jumped off the wall - like all the cast iron pots came crashing down around my glass top stove and knocked a ceramic jar that holds my cooking utensils to the ground - the racket sounded horrendous! Ran downstairs to make sure no one was injured in the crash and though we are spending today revamping the attachment strategy nothing broke! It did however make the kitchen un useable for the day... I'll be baking my baguettes later in the week I suppose

Today we're baking baguettes. If you've been waiting for the right week to try them, this is it. Here's how the working thread runs: drop in throughout the day, share where you are in the process, post photos, ask questions as they come up. I'll be in and out answering. The whole point is that nobody bakes alone today. A few things to keep in mind before you start: Hydration matters. Baguette dough is wetter than a sandwich loaf and that's on purpose. Don't fight it with extra flour. Trust the folds. Shape with intention. The pre-shape sets up the final shape. Rushing the pre-shape is the number one reason baguettes come out lumpy or uneven. Score with confidence. One quick motion, blade angled almost flat to the dough. Hesitation gives you a torn loaf instead of a clean ear. Steam is non-negotiable. Whatever method you use, get steam in that oven for the first 10 minutes. No steam, no crust, no shine. If you need the recipe, here it is: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/ Drop your starting time below so we can see who's mixing when. Photos welcome at every stage. Floury counters, ugly pre-shapes, perfect oven spring, all of it. Let's bake. Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥