Index Wordloafium
aka how to find things here
I’ve been publishing Wordloaf for more than four years now, and the number of posts is kind of out of hand. Moreover, my approach to baking has evolved significantly in the interim. This index is by subject, but I think I need to create a “best of” sometime soon, just so I can point you all to the posts I think best represent the way I do things nowadays. Stay tuned for that!
Index Index
Important Posts
Need a Sourdough Starter? (Start here!)
Recipe Template: The Loaf, 2.0 (No-knead pain au levain, 5% rye)🍞
Recipe: Loaf Classic™ (aka the four-fold pain au levain) 🍞
St. Quarantiny Day (on the origins of the Quarantinystarter and this newsletter)
The Man Behind the Mask (on your humble Wordloafer)
Size Matters, on loaf and other bread pans
North American Regional Flour Millers, a list-in-progress
Recipes
The Loaf, 2.0 (No-knead pain au levain, 5% rye)🍞
Loaf Classic™ (aka the four-fold pain au levain) 🍞
Three Schmears and a Lox: From Cathy Barrow’s Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish
Plant-powered pan パン (vegan bread, briefly, and a recipe), from Gan Chin Lin
Simple Peach (or Nectarine) Preserves (for future brioche buns or kolaches)
Sourdough discard English muffin bread (The Final Cut)
Smoke Sheaths (A Wordloaf-Haterade collaboration)
Chopped Badger Flame Beet Salad with Herbs, Castelvetrano Olives, and Pistachios
Yogurt whey méteil (50% rye) bread, inspired by Homa Dashtaki's Yogurt & Whey
DIYogurt, or how to make Greek yogurt without straining 🔒
Cornzanella, Summer (and bread) in a bowl 🔒
Techniques and Topics
Pass the Dutchie (On Dutch oven baking)
On Being Blue (On cyanotypes, tannins, and bread)
Back to Basics (On The Loaf 2.0)
Everyone Loves a Panade: On my favorite use for stale crusty bread, the panade.
Arguments for seeking out Ethical Flours in baking. (Part One; Part Two)
St. Quarantiny Day: Looking back on the Quarantiny Starter Project, one year on.
Loaf Classic™: On folding dough and sourdough baking.
On the Fractal Nature of Bread Baking: On how bread baking is endlessly challenging (and endlessly fascinating).
It's complicated, part deux (especially in the case of sourdough)
A Tale of Two Cookies (And two wonderful new cookbooks)
On the End of my America’s Test Kitchen Days. Hopefully the last time I ever need to talk or even think about this subject.
Potato, Potato / Mash it Up: Two posts on using potato and dried mashed potato flakes in bread (aka “Lawsonization”, named in honor of the Queen, Nigella Lawson.)
That Levain Feeling: How to diagnose and revive a flagging sourdough starter.
Mill Yer Own: Readers share their thoughts on milling flour at home.
Test Baking Without Tears: On scaling down when working with a starter that is of dubious potency.
Hot, Hot, Hot: On baking bread during heat waves.
Bread Friends are the Best Friends: A love letter to Maine’s Kneading Conference.
Vacation Baking: On baking bread while on vacation.
On Style Guides: On how different recipe style guides are maddening to work with.
Starter Starter Kit: On how I feed my sourdough starter.
Pizzember 2021: The 2nd annual month of pizza-related content.
Baker & Miller Summit: On Visiting Ground Up Grain in Holyoke, MA
How to Read a Bread Recipe: On How well-written bread recipes are made
On Prefermented Flour: Understanding what preferments do and why to use them
The Wordloaf Mega Bread Equipment & Ingredients Guide, which I just updated to be more mega a few weeks ago.
How to Read a Bread Recipe, on reading well-crafted bread recipes, and what goes into making one.
On Prefermented Flour, all about prefermented flour (and preferments).
The Acid Test, on sourdough enriched breads.
Triple-A Flour Power Hour, a conversation with Alicia Kennedy and Amy Halloran about flour.
Wheat or White?, on the complicated question of using 100% whole grain flours in breads.
What I did on my Summer Break, on rejuvenating your bread baking practice in the classroom.
Size Matters, on loaf and other bread pans.
The Dough Before the Dough, on yeasted preferments
The Way You Do the Things You Do, on "right" and "wrong" in bread baking
On Internal Temperatures in Bread Baking, trust your eyes, not your thermometer!
Do this ONE thing to improve your sourdough starter 400% right now! (j/k this isn't YouTube)
All Mixed Up (Part 1), on dough mixing machines (and why KitchenAid hates home bread bakers)
All Mixed Up (Part 2), on stand mixers (alternatives to KitchenAid and how to use them)
Book Excerpts & Recipes
A Tale of Two Cookies: Discussing Roxana Julapat’s Mother Grains and Jen Lapidus’ Southern Ground, and featured dueling chocolate chip cookie recipes from each book
Guest Recipe: Camilla Wynne’s Crabapple Jelly: a wonderful crabapple jelly recipe from Jam Bake, by Camilla Wynne
“Wheat”, from Kate Lebo’s The Book of Difficult Fruit: the "Wheat” chapter from Kate’s book, along with her recipe for whole wheat pie pastry
Sourdough Culture, by Eric Pallant, the introductory chapter from Eric’s wonderful history of sourdough and bread baking
Q&A with Cathy Barrow: Author of Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish
“For the Love of Bread,” and three recipes from Reem Assil's Arabiyya
An excerpt and two recipes from Emma Zimmerman's The Miller's Daughter
An excerpt and two recipes from Lukas Volger's Snacks for Dinner
An excerpt and three recipes from Helen Graves' Live Fire
An excerpt from Breadsong, by Kitty and Al Tait
An excerpt and two recipes from Good & Sweet, by Brian Levy.
An excerpt and two recipes from Tara Jensen’s Flour Power
“Culture and Relationships”, and two recipes from Julia Skinner's Our Fermented Lives
Two recipes from Tim Anderson's JapanEasy Bowls & Bento
An excerpt from The Kingdom of Rye, A Brief History of Russian Food, by Darra Goldstein
An excerpt and the Orange-Cranberry Gugelhupf recipe from Irina Georgescu's Tava
An excerpt and a recipe for Rosemary Buns from Ruby Tandoh's Cook as You Are
An excerpt from Baking Bread with Kids, by Jennifer Latham
A is for 'Anelli', An excerpt and a recipe from Rachel Roddy's An A-Z of Pasta
Two recipes from Giulia Scarpaleggia's Cucina Povera
An excerpt and some breadcrumby recipes from Tamar Adler's The Everlasting Meal Cookbook
Banh mi possibilities: an excerpt and two recipes from Andrea Nguyen's Ever-Green Vietnamese
Cake Yazdi recipe from Homa Dashiki's Yogurt & Whey
Beet and Hazelnut Burgers recipe from Lukas Volger's Veggie Burgers, Every Which Way
Home bakers: Rick Easton thinks you are nuts (But you should get his new book anyway)
Tinkering with Sourness, an excerpt and a recipe from Maurizio Leo's The Perfect Loaf
Medfouna (Berber Buns) and Smoky Tomato & Date Jam, from Lerato Umah Shaylor's Africana
Where bread and photography collide: Images from Jason Fulford's The ❤️ is a Sandwich
Burik con Patate & Pizza Ebraica, from Leah Koenig’s Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen
DrozdZówki with Black Currant And Brown Butter Streusel From Michal Korkosz's Polish'd: Modern Vegetarian Cooking from Global Poland and Pork Floss Milk Bread From Clarissa Wei's Made in Taiwan
Excerpts and recipes for Barley Miso Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Rye Black Bread, from Rose Wilde's Bread and Roses
Excerpts and recipes for Braised onion ragù, Broccoli Sauce, and The Faux Manti from Meryl Feinstein’s Pasta Every Day and Dan Pashman’s Anything's Pastable
Excerpts and recipes for Flaky Cheese and Pickle Scones and Olive Oil Brie-Oche With Roasted Grapes, Honey And Thyme, from Nicola Lamb’s Sift: The Elements of Great Baking
Guest Posts
The Story of "The Story of the Staff of Life": Amy Halloran, aka The Flour Ambassador, on the moment that Americans abandoned homemade bread for factory loaves
Gan Chin Lin’s In pursuit of vegan 'milk bread'
Baking Isn't a Solitary Act, from Dayna Evans.
That Lone Wolf Bread Lyfe, Rhianna Morris on debigulating bread recipes.
When Instagram Can’t Help You with Troubleshooting, from Jesse Raub.
It’s Alive!, from Anna Sulan Masing.
Eight Lessons from My Panettone Saga, from Olga Koutseridi.
What Makes a Challah a Challah?, from Rachel Mennies (with a recipe).
A Secret Man of Pi, A Pi(e) Day Guest Post, from Amy Halloran
Consider the Breadcrumb, from Jeffrey Rubel
Baking Is Art: The Great Blanton Bake-Off, from Dayna Evans
The Dishes Will Get Cleaned Up Eventually: Cottage Baking Beyond the Instagram Grid, from Annie Clapper of The Family Crumb
Ethically grown local flour won't absolve us from our moral dilemmas
Affordability, food businesses, and hunger in the U.S., from Devin Kate Pope
The Wonder of Bread: Bread and Poetry, from Maya Popa
The Cake Doctor calls the Bread Doctor, A Wordloaf-Between the Layers collaboration, over cinnamon rolls
Bakeryland: A game, from Amy Halloran
Remembering Sarah Black, baker & teacher, from Amy Halloran
Greetings from Camp Bread: Learning in person, from Amy Halloran
Ground Up Grain, Valley Malt's little sister, from Amy Halloran
Grains, Regional and Whole, from Amy Halloran
Farms, Food and Photography: Ways of seeing, from Amy Halloran
In Diaspora, Spice Becomes Seed, the thread of mahleb through an Eastern Orthodox baking tradition, from Ruby Saha
Visiting the Ghosts of Bread: Reher's Bakery, from Amy Halloran
Buckwheat, Springtime lovesong, from Amy Halloran
The Tradwives Are Making Incredibly Weird Bread: The light of the home makes goopy-ass bread, from Anna Merlan
Oscillate Wildly: The truth about ovens and temperature, from Jesse Raub
Interviews
Croissants All Day, All Night: An interview with Kate Reid, of Lune Croissanterie
An Interview with Jennifer Latham Author of Baking Bread with Kids
Yes Whey: An interview with Homa Dashtaki, author of Yogurt & Whey
The biggest secret that is not secret: An interview with Addie Roberts, author of Secrets of Open Crumb
Flowers and flours: An interview with sourdough starter expert Debra Wink
Rose Wilde Invites us to taste, an interview by Amy Halloran
Starting the Sweet Starter: an interview with lan Lowe
Culinary Diplomacy: An interview with Olia Hercules, writer & activist, by Amy Halloran
Nourishing: An interview with Brant Stewart of Mavia Bakery, a social enterprise in Beirut, by Amy Halloran
Starters and Levains
In Medias Res (Care and Maintenance of a Mature Sourdough Starter)
Not-Quite-So-Tiny Starter (Quarantinystarter 2.0)
Real mature (On starter health)
Need a Sourdough Starter? (Start here!)
That Levain Feeling (and what to do when you've lost it)
Starter Starter Kit, On how I feed my sourdough starter
Starter starter kit, 2023 edition, Yet another refreshment
Stiffed, on stiff vs. liquid levains
Continuous Sourdough Starter Maintenance Without Friction (or Wasted Flour), why the fridge isn't your starter's best friend
lan Lowe's Sweet Starter Process, a detailed overview
The Dough Before The Dough, On adjusting preferments in bread doughs
D5/(1+D6)*D7*0.115*(1+D9)(D5/(1+D6) *D7*0.115), Or: How I nearly broke my brain building a preferment calculator
Twenty grams of flour and a little jar, sourdough micro-starter maintenance for everyone, the easy way
Pizza
Slab City: An ode to one of my favorite slices
The Wordloaf Mega Pizza Equipment, Ingredients, and Resources Guide
The Campanians L&B Spumoni Gardens & Galleria Umberto pizzas (plus sfincione)
For the Squares: Chicago Tavern-Style Pizza - A guest post & recipe from John Carruthers
[Up to date as of 6/5/24]
Many many thanks!
This is super that you did this. What a nice gift to your readers. And I know such tasks are not completely fun.