Yesterday, I made bread dough with two kilograms of flour.
I divided it between two large bowls and mixed everything roughly by hand.
I don’t like kneading dough for a long time—pushing it, pounding it, throwing it around. I would rather let the dough do some of the work.
I roughly mixed everything together with my hands, then folded each dough eight times.
Fifteen minutes later, I folded them eight times again.
I repeated that four times, with music playing through my headphones, moving in and out of the kitchen whenever it was time to fold the dough again.
Meanwhile, my bread machine was making a cheesecake on its cake setting.
By the last round of folds, the dough that had started out rough and sticky had become smooth and soft.
That was enough.
I divided each batch in half with a dough scraper, slipped the four pieces into separate large zip bags, and put them in the refrigerator.
The cheesecake cooled. I tasted it, cut it into portions, and put them in the freezer.
That was Saturday.
On Sunday, almost exactly twenty-four hours after I had put the dough in the refrigerator, I took it out.
And then I realized how hot it was.
Why did I make two kilograms of flour’s worth of dough?
I left it on the table for about an hour.
The last time I had used cold-fermented dough, I had left it at room temperature much longer. If I had been trying to reproduce the best possible result, I probably would have done the same thing again.
But I wasn’t particularly interested in making the best possible bread.
It was hot.
I just wanted to keep this simple.
So when I felt ready to move, I opened the bags.
The dough was still slightly cool and firmer than it would have been if I had left it out longer. I don’t weigh individual pieces. I usually just reach in and pull off what feels right.
This time, what felt right was big.
So I made big pieces.
That was fine with me. Smaller pieces would mean more bread, more trays, and more time with the oven running.
I put my headphones back on and shaped the dough to the music, moving from one piece to the next.
Soon I had two trays ready.
Good enough. I can bake the rest tomorrow.
Except there wasn’t really enough left for tomorrow.
I looked at the remaining dough.
I could make hotteok with it later.
That sounded like work.
Blueberry cream cheese buns, then.
So that was what I made.
Seven of them.
Six went onto one tray. The last piece of dough was bigger, so I gave it an extra piece of cream cheese and one more blueberry.
There was an empty spot on the tray beside the round breads, so I put it there.
None of this had been the plan.
The Oven Could Stay in the Kitchen
Once the bread was proofing, I lay down for fifteen minutes.
When I came out, my son was getting ready to take a bath in the tub in our bedroom. We don’t have air conditioning at home, so fans move around quite a bit in the summer. I had moved the one from our bedroom earlier, so I carried it back for him.
My husband was out, so his fan came out of the study too.
I usually plug the oven into an outlet in our bedroom using a long extension cord. But my son had closed the door to take his bath, so this time I ran the cord into my husband’s empty study instead.
I turned on the oven.
180°C.
Then I took off my headphones.
Usually, when the oven is on, I somehow stay near it.
I look at the bread.
I check the temperature.
I adjust it a little.
Then I look again.
The oven is doing the baking, but apparently I have always felt that I should participate.
Today, it was simply too hot for that.
So I wandered out of the kitchen.
That was when I noticed the two fans. The way they happened to be facing across the living room made the room surprisingly comfortable.
Oh. This was nice.
I stayed there.
I walked back and forth across the living room for a while, then went out to the balcony. I looked at the sky, took a picture, and checked on my plants.
Eventually I wandered back to the kitchen.
180°C.
Everything looked fine.
So I left again.
I had to laugh.
I had been standing beside a hot oven all these years as if it needed company.
One Tray Became Another
The first breads I had shaped were ready before the blueberry cream cheese buns.
That was how I usually worked—the later ones could wait while the earlier ones baked.
The larger blueberry cream cheese bun was different. It was already sitting in the empty spot beside the round breads, and there wouldn’t be room for it on the tray with the other six once they puffed up.
So I didn’t wait.
It went into the oven with the round breads.
Twenty-two minutes later, I opened the oven to take out the bun.
That was when I noticed.
Oh. I put the round breads on the bottom.
I left them there for the moment.
Ten minutes later, the other pan was ready. I took it out, moved the round breads up to the middle, and slid the tray of six blueberry cream cheese buns into the empty space below.
The round breads usually took about thirty-four minutes. But I had opened the oven and moved them, so I gave them about another minute.
Out they came.
The buns moved up to the middle.
I already knew from the last batch that the buns needed about twenty-two minutes. This time, after opening the oven and moving them too, I gave them just a little longer—not even a full minute.
That was it.
One pan came out. Another moved up. Another went in.
No elaborate calculation.
No hovering.
Eventually the kitchen counter and cooling racks were covered with bread.
My daughter ate two blueberry cream cheese buns.
I looked at everything I had baked.
For something I had been trying not to make into a big job, there was an impressive amount of bread.
And I wasn’t exhausted.
Then I Cut Into It
Later, I wanted something like a sandwich.
There was a little spicy pork left from my husband’s late lunch. It had been sitting at room temperature and was no longer warm.
I sliced a thin piece from the crisp end of one of the loaves.
The knife went through the bread beautifully.
I spread on a little mayonnaise, added a few lettuce leaves, then piled on the pork and some mushrooms from the pan. I added a handful of baby greens from the refrigerator and a few drops of hot sauce.
I took a bite.
It was so good.
I made another one from the other end of the loaf and tried ketchup this time.
No.
A little too rich for me.
I added hot sauce.
Much better.
My son saw me eating.
“Is it good?”
“It’s good.”
I laughed.
“I made all this, and I think I’m the one enjoying it the most.”
He said, “You made it. You should enjoy it the most.”
He heated his own pork, took some lettuce and a bowl of rice, and disappeared into his room.
Later, after the bread had cooled, I started slicing some of it for my son to toast later.
Again, I noticed the way the knife moved through it.
The crumb looked beautiful.
What happened?
My son came out while I was slicing.
He is usually the one who tells me that freshly baked bread should go straight into the freezer. He prefers to take it out later and toast it.
But this time he picked up a slice.
He was standing right there by the sink.
He put some of the remaining spicy pork on top and ate it.
Then he took another slice.
And another.
I looked at him and laughed.
“Good, right?”
He laughed too.
He finished the last little bit of pork with the remaining lettuce.
Then he looked at the bread.
“This is totally professional.”
He asked how long I had cold-fermented the dough.
“Twenty-four hours.”
He said it was the best loaf bread of mine he had ever eaten.
I looked at the slices on the counter.
Yesterday, I hadn’t worried much about the dough.
Today, I had shaped it while it was still a little cool, made the pieces bigger because it was easier, and spent most of the baking time somewhere other than the kitchen.
The oven had stayed at 180°C.
Apparently, it knew what to do.
→ Why I Keep Making Bread — The Feeling That Brought Me Back
