(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)
Good morning revellers and ravers, welcome to Day 52 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.
It is a good friend of mine’s birthday today, and considering the last two years I have not been able to celebrate their birthday properly with them, I am putting a fair bit of effort into hosting a party of sorts for them.
Went out and bought a bunch of picnic snacky bits, got plenty of drinks, and even made a loaf of bread which is going to be the subject of today’s review… yes I am reviewing something I baked myself, I have thoughts on how it went and also it is my website I can blow my own trumpet if I want to.
We are also going to be doing a small Magic: the Gathering event with some Edge of Eternity pre-release kits I picked up a week or so back. Considering the time we are starting it is not going to be a proper sealed event, so we are doing a sort of bodge job Commander sealed instead, which should be pretty fun.
Sent off my first invoice for my contracting work yesterday as well, which gave me an idea of how much my labour is actually paying me and… being honest, so long as I can keep my stress levels in check, I can see myself comfortably seeing out the end of this contract which would give me plenty of time to see how life will change in the meantime.
And at the very least, I now have a very decent nest egg to take with me to my convention trip in September, which considering that has been my goal for the majority of the year should be an extremely good time to relax, cut loose, and be a big nerd for a weekend.
So, as mentioned previously, my review subject today is the loaf of bread I baked for my friend.
On pure looks alone, this has honestly turned out incredibly sexy. It has a perfectly crunchy crust on top and whilst the bottom is a little craggly and overly coated in flour, for a first attempt I think it turned out pretty good.
The basis that I used for making this loaf was a Basics With Babish video where he goes through Jim Lahey’s No-Knead bread technique, mixing together flour, water, yeast, and salt before leaving it to ferment for twenty-four hours to make a very inflated and sticky dough.
Despite the fact it rose a lot within the bowl during the fermentation process, it did turn out flatter than I anticipated, which I am not sure to attribute to the technique I used, the overly long fermentation time, or not properly folding/proofing my dough after I had taken it out of the bowl.
That said, after cutting a tiny piece off and sharing it with my partner, I suddenly understand why everyone says that homemade bread ruins all other breads for you – it was absolutely delicious for how simple of a technique it was to get together.
It was definitely a good first foray into bread baking as well, and considering one of my goals this year is to make a ciabatta loaf, I think I made the right first step.
Thank you for reading this bread-based edition of the Redundancy Review. Wherever you are I hope you are able to relax this weekend and enjoy some good food.
Here’s the video I used for my bread loaf as well:
Rosalia Rambles 
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