Personal site of journalist, baker, and storyteller Tony Ganzer.
It’s been a while since my last Baking Journalist episode. I had been mulling over the topic of not being perfect, or needing to fail, to make progress in journalism and in bread baking.
And then I was hit by a car.
I couldn’t bake, or type, or do many of the things we don’t often think about every day. All of the sudden I had a lot of time to think about those things, and so much more.
In a month that brought some pretty serious lows, I’m really honored to have The Baking Journalist project featured in Northeast Ohio’s preeminent food magazine Edible Cleveland!
Lisa Sands and photographer Laura Watilo Blake stopped by my humble abode while talking, baking, and (hopefully) enjoying some of my basic breads. It really was a pleasure to share this project with them and their readers.
I was a little apprehensive that my breads wouldn’t be good enough, or my kitchen wasn’t big enough, or whatever. But Lisa said Edible Cleveland likes to talk to real people, creating and enjoying food. I definitely qualified!
It may be a little while before I can bake like I had been doing, but I’ll keep trying. This experience has definitely put some wind in my sails. Continue reading “The Baking Journalist in Edible Cleveland!”
Here’s an update on my quest to up-skill my baguette game. This isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it’s a good start. And you can do it, too!
I hope you like it, and please subscribe on YouTube, and to my e-mail list.
So much of my bread journey so far has been about no-knead breads that serve a purpose, and the Swiss Zopf bread sort of fits in that trend. My sandwich bread is helping to save us a little money; my Rosemary Asiago is helping us to, well, eat more Rosemary Asiago bread; but the Zopf is a nice looking bread that connects us to the Swiss part of our lives.
The great thing about this bread is that it looks complicated, but is relatively straight-forward once you figure out the braiding pattern. “Zopf” in German literally means “braid,” but a traditional Zopf only uses two strands instead of three. (Although I saw one with five!) Continue reading “A first attempt at Swiss Zopf bread”
This post is about a side of home bread baking that I’ve not spoken to many people about: cost.
If you dip into the bread baking section of social media you’ll be amazed by the artisan works of edible art. Professionals and amateurs alike post photos of loaves beautifully decorated with ivy patterns or artistic folds; videos show time-lapse views of skilled dough shaping and loaf preparation.
I appreciate those skills, and continue to try to learn them, but this post isn’t about that. This post is about home baking loaves of sandwich bread to support a family, and how much that costs, with probably more detail than is necessary.
My backstory and detailed cost breakdown will follow, but here’s the point:
Baking loaves of wide-pan wheat-white-oat bread myself cost us up to $3.80, lasting a week and a little longer.
Buying bread ran us $3.57 per week, but could be up to $5.57 without cheap bread options. (I’ll explain.)
Continue reading “Save money making your own sandwich bread?”
Today: How to make two loaves of your own delicious sandwich bread. This is a wheat-white-and oat blend, and even if you’ve never made bread, you can do it, too!
I hope you like it, and please subscribe on YouTube, and to my e-mail list.
Part of a web series of bread baking and talk about the craft of journalism, this time with Rosemary Asiago. I talk about whether objectivity in journalism is a myth.
I hope you like it, and please subscribe on YouTube, and to my e-mail list.