Wild Yeast

I would like to wish happy weighing to Joey D of San Diego, winner of the My Weigh i5000 scale, and Nicole Dula of Dula Notes, winner of the KD-8000.

Next time I’m going to have to ask My Weigh for 247 scales, so everyone can win one. I’m not sure if they’ll go for this, though, so it might be a good idea to just get one. Here are a couple of online sources:

Amazon: i5000, KD-8000

Old Will Knott Scales: i5000, KD-8000

YeastSpotting is one year old. I asked you to help me make this a big celebration, and wow, did you deliver!

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has sent loaves, rolls, pastries, pizzas, and so many more lovingly-baked breads, this week and every week for the past year. Thank you for deeming YeastSpotting worthy of your tremendous talent and effort. Thank you for making YeastSpotting happen.

See this week’s yeast spottings…

Try a thing you haven’t tried before three times – once to get over the fear, once to find out how to do it, and a third time to find out whether you like it or not. — Virgil Thomson

I’m going to take a few liberties with Mr. Thomson’s quote to fit my experience with this fig and fennel bread. I was never afraid of it, I knew I liked it on the first pass, and it took me until the third time to figure out how to do it. So mine would go something like this:

Try a bread you haven’t baked before three times – once to overhydrate it, once to overproof it, and a third time to find out whether you really can bake at all or if you should just hang up your apron right now and go skydiving three times.

I’m happy to report I didn’t have to resort to skydiving.

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If you’re looking for me today, catch me on Ari’s fantastic blog, Baking and Books, where I make a guest appearance with Pain Sur Poolish while Ari cruises the Carribbean. Not a bad deal for either of us.

I know I’ve said this before (and before and before and before), but I need to weigh in on this again:

If you’re not weighing your ingredients, you should be!

If you don’t know why, go scoot and read my small rant on weighing. (Summary: It’s accurate. It’s fast. It’s neat. Everyone who’s anyone is doing it.) Then come back, because I have something you might want.

For two years my trusty scale has been a My Weigh i5000. I love it because:

• it is spot-on accurate
• it can weigh in either grams (to 1-gram precision) or pounds and ounces (to 0.5-ounce precision)
• it has a capacity of 5 kg
• it is slim and lightweight and fits easily in a kitchen drawer (although I leave mine out because I use it daily)

I love my scale so much I thought I’d ask the people at My Weigh if they would give me one that I could give to one of you, and they were nice enough to say yes.

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