Poppy Seed Loaf, Two Ways. 1,791 working thread comments. A 3 AM bake. A knee replacement. A birthday party. And while we were busy with all of it, we crossed 1,000 members. The full story is here: 👉 https://quick-dory-s4zc.here.now/ Win of the Day this week: @Betsy Carey. Read why. You'll understand. Member moments inside: @Stacey Avraham · @Sandy Chong · @Candi Brown-McGriff · @Colleen Vergara · @Lisa D · @Joseph Bilodeau · @Mary Nunaley · @Barb Kratzmann · @Robert Caldas · @Mauvette Bailey · @Kathee Judd · @Kathy Judd · @Cheryl Odden · @Donna Angelo · @Patt Stanaway · @Linda Glantz · @Ann Snow · @Judy Lyle · @Michele Nilson · @Susie Kendall · @William McNeely · @Ehsan Omara · @JoAnn Amato · @Nick Nebelsky · @Briana Rodulfo · @Linda Gregory · @Jill Hart · @Deborah Karaban · @Angela Everly · @Dianne Givens · @Rhonda Talamo · @Lara Sloan · @Gaylord Foreman · @Tracy Havlik · @David Smith · @Imani Hunter · @Maureen Kilbride · @David Bachman · @Karen Castillo · @Dar Brown

A lot of you came from Facebook. I run Baking Great Bread at Home over there, 40,000+ members, and I love that community. But I want to be honest about something. On Facebook, you often get one of two things: criticism without substance or compliments without critique. Someone posts a loaf and the comments are either "Beautiful!" when there's clearly something going on, or unhelpful jabs that don't teach you anything. People mean well. They're trying to be kind. But kindness without honesty doesn't make you a better baker. This is a different place. Crust & Crumb Academy is exactly that: an academy. This is where you come to hone your skills and get better. That means when you ask for feedback, you're going to get it. Real feedback. Specific feedback. The kind that actually helps you improve. I'll always be kind. I'll always be encouraging. But you're not going to get empty platitudes from me. If I see something in your crumb, your shaping, your scoring, I'm going to tell you what it is and how to fix it. That's what coaches do. And I want you to do the same for each other. When someone posts a bake and asks for critique, give them something useful. Tell them what you see. Ask questions. Share what's worked for you. That's how we all get better. This is a teaching environment. We're not here to collect compliments. We're here to make better bakers. Perfection is not required. But growth is the goal. Let's get to work. ~Henry

☀️ Good morning, bakers. It's bake day. 🥖🔥 Drop in here all day. This is the working thread. 📸 Photos ❓ Questions 📈 Progress shots 😅 Panics 🏆 Wins 🥣 Anything you've got I'll be in and out of the kitchen and in and out of this thread until the last loaf is out of the oven. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📍 Here's where I am right now: [Drop photo of your levain or current dough state] My levain is ready and I'm mixing the sourdough version with toasted black sesame this morning. If you want to follow my pace, here's roughly when I'll hit each stage: 🥣 Fermentolyse: 8:00 AM 🧂 Add salt: 9:00 AM 🔄 First coil + seeds: 9:30 AM 🔄 Second coil: 10:00 AM 🔄 Third coil: 10:30 AM 🌡️ Bulk finish: 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM ✂️ Pre-shape: 1:00 PM 🪢 Final shape: 1:30 PM ❄️ Cold retard: 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM 🔥 Bake: 6:00 PM ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⚠️ Your timeline may run faster or slower depending on your kitchen temperature. Don't chase mine. Watch your dough. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📌 A Few Quick Reminders For Today 🧂 The dough is going to look like it's falling apart after the salt. That's normal. Keep working it. It'll come back together. 💧 At 80% hydration, wet hands are your friend. Floured hands work against you. Keep a bowl of water nearby. 🌻 If you're using sesame, sunflower, pepitas, or any seed besides poppy... Toast it first if you haven't already. Cool completely before folding it in. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📖 The Recipes Are Here 🥖 Sourdough:https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/poppy-seed-sourdough-loaf 🥖 Yeasted:https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/poppy-seed-yeasted-loaf ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧡 For The New Bakers In The Room Welcome. You picked a good week to jump in. There's no wrong answer today. Bake what excites you.Ask whatever you need to ask.And don't apologize for being new. We were all new once. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👇 Drop in below and tell us: 🥖 What you're baking