The joy of quarantine baking

By Christina Wang (alum)

Perhaps you’ve noticed that everyone on your social media has started baking bread from scratch. Even people who don’t usually bake are suddenly rising up to the challenge, making sourdough starters and naming their pet yeasts. What was once considered the pinnacle of bread baking has now become a common household practice.

You may be wondering, why? Why are people going into a baking frenzy, fighting over the last bag of flour on the shelf? (I was one of them—I had to jump to grab a bag off of the highest shelf last week.) Maybe it’s the survival instinct kicking in and people want to be able to make things from scratch. Or maybe people have too much time on their hands and are doing it out of boredom.

Whatever the reason, here’s why you should be doing it too: fresh, homemade bread is delicious. Once you’ve had it you’ll never want to go back to store-bought bread again.

Below is an easy recipe (download the long-form PDF here and the single-page printable PDF here) that doesn’t require a sourdough starter. In fact, it doesn’t require any special equipment or fancy ingredients at all. But if you do have a stand mixer or bread machine, feel free to use one of those to knead instead.

Tips: If you live alone (like me) or if your household doesn’t eat a lot of bread, I recommend slicing and freezing it in a Ziploc bag. To reheat, simply pop a couple slices into the toaster—no need to wait for it to defrost.

Illustration & infographics by Christina Wang / Tremendousness