I made bread once every couple weeks for a year before I got a loaf I was happy with. My gram taught me how to make it, and hers was always light, high, smelled yeasty, and tasted perfect. Finally, mine started to get that way. There’s always more to learn, though, and even this past year, I finally became able to predict if a loaf was going to be spectacular or just good, by the feel of in as I stirred the flour/yeast water mix with the wooden spoon.
I have a rough time making decent light biscuits, though. My daughter in law makes perfect ones, effortlessly, it seems. She has found the knack. I need more practice, I’ve rarely made them.
I’m not too bad at pie dough, the secret to that is to not worry if it seems crumbly in the bowl, go ahead and roll it out anyway, pretty much as thin as possible, on a big sheet of plastic wrap (then lift up the wrap, and invert it over the pie pan, gently coax the thin dough off).
The neat thing about bread though, is that the taste IS great. Smells wonderful too, when baking. ;-D Even failures are wonderful, just out of the oven, LOL!
Thanks for your reply - it will keep me going on my baking path...and you are so right! Even if the bread, etc. doesn’t come out just right it smells and tastes wonderful out of the oven.....butter can overcome most mistakes and at the end of the day - there’s always homemade breadcrumbs and bread pudding :)
Oh, and I need to get my wooden spoons out:)
I never could make decent biscuits or pancakes until I started using self rising flour.