Thank you for indulging me. A few weeks ago, a man I have never met in person sent my son a song. His name is Nick. He runs a Skool community of his own called AI Storytellers, and he had been listening to me talk about Ryan, my javelin-throwing son, in the kind of way only proud dads do. Then @Nick Nebelsky did something most people would not have thought to do. He sat down and wrote five songs for Ryan. The one that landed was called Running in Light. When Ryan heard it, he did not say much. He just nodded the way he does when something moves him. A few days later, Ryan competed at the Duke Twilight, his final meet before NCAA Division II Nationals. He was throwing against professional athletes. He put on his headphones, listened to Nick’s song, and walked to the runway. He finished first among the collegiate athletes in the field. Nick wrote about it in his own community yesterday. He said that in the right hands, AI can take a father someone has never met and a son someone has never met and produce a gospel song that makes a family weep on a Sunday morning before the biggest meet of the year. He is right. That is not a parlor trick. That is craft, taste, and care, applied to a tool most people are still using to generate noise. I am sharing this with the Academy because Nick asked me to, but also because it belongs here. This community is built on the idea that real people, working with care, can make something good. Nick is one of those people. So are you. Thank you, Nick. You gave my son something to carry into the circle. That is a gift I will pass forward. The song: https://youtu.be/uirKj0Jqdm8 Faith. Focus. Finish. ~Henry ⭐️🔥 Below is the song and my thank you poster.

This is where you take control of your timing. ⏱️ Retard just means slowing fermentation down on purpose, usually by putting your dough in the fridge. ❄️ Cold doesn’t stop fermentation. It slows it. That gives you more time… and a lot more flexibility. 🌾 It also builds flavor. Slow fermentation deepens everything. 🔪 And practically speaking, it firms up your dough so scoring gets easier and cleaner. If you’ve ever felt rushed trying to bake on a schedule that doesn’t fit your life, this is how you fix that. Shape your dough. Put it in the fridge. Bake when you’re ready. That’s retard.

OK so if you’ve seen The Jerk with Steve Martin, you know exactly what I looked like yesterday. 😂 I’m scrolling through Skool, minding my own business, and I notice something next to my name. A star. I’m like… what is that? Had to look it up like Steve Martin flipping through that phone book. Here’s what that star means. And it’s a lot. So sit down. 🪑 ⭐ Top 1% of ALL communities on Skool. Out of 191,000 communities on this platform. That’s the star. That’s what it means. Let that sink in for a second. 🍞 #1 bread baking community on Skool. Nobody else on this platform is doing what we’re doing. Not even close. 🏆 And according to ProveWorth, which independently rates and certifies online communities… Crust & Crumb Academy is the #1 rated community on the ENTIRE platform. Not the #1 bread community. Not the #1 food community. The #1 rated community. Period. We are somebody now! 😂🏃‍♂️ But hold on. Let me be real with you. This is NOT MY STAR. There is nothing I could be doing in this community that would earn this if it weren’t for you. I could be in here posting the greatest content ever written about bread and if nobody showed up, nobody engaged, nobody helped each other, nobody posted their bakes, their wins, their “what went wrong” moments… there’s no star. There’s no 5-star rating. There’s nothing. 380+ bakers in just over two months. That’s what did this. YOU did this. 🙌 Every bake-along comment. Every photo, even the ones you almost didn’t post. Every time you jumped in to help someone before I could get there. Every single loaf that was a little better than the last one. That’s the stuff stars are made of. ✨ I wear this star proudly. But I wear it on YOUR behalf. And I promise to keep it shiny. 🌟 Now the word is leaking out, so I wanted you to hear it from me first. This community, what we’ve built together in two months, is something special. Coaching, not cheerleading. Progress, not perfection. Real bakers helping real bakers get better. Rare air. And we’re breathing it together. 💪🍞

Everyone's talking about focaccia right now. King Arthur just named their version the 2025 Recipe of the Year. It's all over social media. And I get it. Focaccia is approachable, forgiving, and when it's done right, absolutely stunning. But here's the thing. Most focaccia recipes skip the technique that makes Ligurian focaccia legendary. The brine. This Saturday, we're making authentic Ligurian-style focaccia with the saltwater brine technique that creates an impossibly crispy crust while keeping the interior soft and airy. It's the difference between good focaccia and focaccia that makes people stop mid-bite and ask what you did differently. What you'll need: - Bread flour (500g) - Instant yeast (7g) - Good olive oil (you'll use about 90ml total, don't skimp) - Fine sea salt + flaky salt for finishing - Fresh rosemary - A 9x13 metal pan Timeline options: - Same-day bake (about 4 hours start to finish) - Overnight cold ferment (mix Friday night, bake Saturday morning for deeper flavor) I'll post more on the full recipe and shopping list tomorrow. For now, check your pantry and make sure you've got good olive oil. This bread drinks it. Saturday we bake. Who's in? 👉 Ligurian-Style Focaccia Recipe

When Polish bakers brought this wet, bubbly method to France in the 19th century, French bakers noticed something immediately: lighter crumb, better color, more complex aroma, and thin crust that shattered when you bit into it. They adopted the technique and built the modern baguette around it. This module covers what poolish is (a 100% hydration pre-ferment with no salt), its history and journey from Central Europe to Parisian bakeries, the science of enzymatic sugar production and gluten relaxation, how to build poolish with proper timing and yeast quantities, how to recognize peak fermentation, when to choose poolish over other pre-ferments, and common mistakes that derail results. The module includes a complete recipe for Classic Poolish Baguettes. Take the rest of the course "Pre-ferments the Architecture of Flavor" by going to the classroom at the top of the page. Mark this lesson as complete and gain your points