Let This Be A Lesson

Day 219: Let this be a lesson to you...or in my case, a reminder of something I had forgotten from fifty years ago: flour matters. A month or so ago, I inadvertently ran out of flour. When I pulled out what should have been a new bag, it turned out to be sugar instead. Suffice to say that this put me in a panic because it was almost Bread Day, and there wasn't enough in the countertop canister for a loaf. I checked my grocery store on line and was surprised to see that they were out of Gold Medal, the only brand of bread flour I've used in half a century. I looked at two other stores. They were also out, so I went back to my usual store and ordered their house brand. When Bread Day arrived, I used a combination of what was left in the canister and the new flour, and thought that my loaf was a little slow to rise. The next time I made bread, the slow rise was undeniable. A subsequent loaf was also slow to rise and the texture was dense...like my head, which hadn't made the obvious connection yet. Instead, I assumed my sourdough start had lost some of its potency, so I strengthened it over a period of several days with feedings. When I made the sponge for my next loaf, it behaved properly in the early stages, but again, the loaf was reluctant and heavy. By now, I had gone through most of the five-pound bag of house-brand flour and was on the verge of buying another one because I was again having trouble locating Gold Medal bread flour at any of the stores near me. At some point in my search, the little lightbulb in my brain came on. It was the flour's fault! I persisted in my search for Gold Medal until I found it, bought the few bags the store had in stock, and made a perfect loaf after consigning the remainder of the house brand to cookies.