Friday Bread Basket 10/17/25

Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain (and pizza).

Life on Mars

Good news, everyone: We'll be able to keep baking bread once Elon Musk ships us all to the red planet. Scientists have recently subjected Saccharomyces cerevisiae (aka baker's yeast) to "Mars-like" conditions and it survived unscathed:

The authors simulated Martian shock waves at the High-Intensity Shock Tube for Astrochemistry (HISTA) housed in the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India. Yeast exposed to 5.6 Mach intensity shock waves survived with slowed growth, as did yeast subjected to 100 mM sodium salt of perchlorate (NaClO₄)—a concentration similar to that in Martian soils. Yeast cells also survived exposure to the combined stress of shock waves and perchlorate stress. In both cases, the yeast assembled RNP condensates.

Now all we need to do is sort out which strains of wheat grow best on the Martian plains (presumably red ones).

Common yeast can survive Martian conditions

Any life on Mars in the past, present, or future would have to contend with challenging conditions including, among others, shock waves from meteorite impacts and soil perchlorates—highly oxidizing salts that destabilize hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic interactions.

Phys.orgPNAS Nexus

High fidelity

Friend and regular Wordloaf contributor Jesse Raub recently wrote a post for Serious Eats on how to incorporate high-extraction flours into your baking once you've gotten working with white flours down:

I've never been great at picking up casual hobbies—the moment something gets its hooks in me, I become fixated. After a successful run of no-knead loaves made with all-purpose flour, I immediately built two different sourdough starters and read every article and recipe I could find to replicate the best naturally leavened loaves from local bakeries. My pantry soon overflowed with bags of different flours from mills across the country. There was spelt for added flavor, light rye for feeding my starter, a variety of heirloom whole wheat flours for texture and tang, and artisanal white flour to act as a base for the mix.

But the most prized flour in my collection was also the one I knew least about: a bag of bolted flour—a sifted flour with the bran removed—from a local mill in Wisconsin. The ingredient added depth and richness to my bread. Whenever I leaned heavily on bolted flour for my country loaves, focaccia, pizza, or baguettes, I unlocked new levels of nuttiness with a tender crumb that I couldn't achieve with either white flour or whole wheat flour alone. The only issue? I didn't really know why.

Jesse asked me to weigh in on the topic, and I was more than happy to give him my thoughts.

I Tried Every Flour I Could Find. This One Finally Made My Bread Perfect

For the very best loaves, many bakers reach for high-extraction flour, which brings sweetness, nuttiness, and minerality to breads and pastries.

Serious EatsEditorial Process

Harissiad

Sarah Becan recently spent two weeks teaching illustration to teenagers in Yerevan, Armenia and wrote about it for her newsletter. While there, she learned the joys of harissa, the Armenian wheat berry porridge, and made these amazing illustrations about how it is made:

That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful, restful weekend. See you next week.

—Andrew