Baking Failures

I would like to mention something we often don’t like to talk about. I have baking failures. We all do. Those of you who are newbies sometimes get discouraged by seeing other baker’s photos, but all of us, even now, will have failures, we just don’t post them for the world to see.

I’ve been experimenting with whole grains and I’ve had plenty of failures. By the time I tweak a formula a million times, I start getting it right and what I learn from that process I pass on to you. Other bakers have failures too, even pro bakers, especially with new methods and formulas.

First trial bake (failure):

Later trial bake (success):

So don’t get discouraged, you may need to multiple tweaks as you figure out what flour works, how to shape, learning to tell when a dough is done proofing etc.

Failures are just a path to success and the more you are willing to fail and learn from it, the better baker you will turn out to be. So many are afraid of failure, that they don’t learn much and they don’t have anywhere near the fun that the rest of us do. So have fun, don’t worry about your failures.

In the photos below, the first one was a failure on my way to tweaking the formula for the second and third photos.
Working with my modified gluten bread:
Failure:

Success:

I’ve been working with more whole grains and it took me a while to get this nice crumb:

It doesn’t happen overnight and there are plenty of failures along the way, especially when you are experimenting or learning a new method… or just starting out. So hang in there and don’t get discouraged, just think of each failure as part of the learning process.

If you want to learn more, consider joining an online sourdough baking courses in The Baking Network Academy. More courses are in process by our baking instructors, so check back and see what’s new in the academy.

Happy baking everyone! Teresa