553: Sourdough Myths Debunked, Love For the Bread Machine with Richard Hart & Lukas Volger

31:40I'm super gentle and loving and delicate. I know. You know, I see a lot of bakers and they're beating the shit out of their dough. And it really affects me because, like, you don't need to do that. So why are you being the boss and being this aggressive man that's slapping this dough? It doesn't need that. Like, it just needs time and patience and chill. And, you know, I'm very meditative as a baker. But, like, I'll do what it needs and I'll be assertive, like you say. But, like, I'm giving it all my love is going into that loaf of bread. And, you know, I'm still making bread day in, day out, every day.

32:14I'm completely obsessed with it. I'll do it forever. And I'm honestly putting as much love into it as I can. And I'm teaching my staff to be more gentle, more delicate, because the more you beat it up, I think you're actually destroying it rather than making it better. It seems that that's a big mistake. Yeah. Home bread bakers make is touching it too much. What else? What are other mistakes that bread bakers are making at home? I just I think people are a little nervous because they don't really know what they're doing. So they get a little anxious. And, yeah, I think they'll just hold it wrong because they don't quite know.

32:50And you know what? But I think I said it in the book, it's a bit like learning to play an instrument or something like that. You have to work at it. You're not going to be able to make great bread in first day, second day, third day. You just got to keep going and learn it, learn it inside out and fall in love with it. There's a lot of hot takes in the book. And I feel there's some lorry in there, too, and calling out these conversations you have. And it's a really readable book. One thing that really stuck out is that you don't really subscribe to the old sourdough starter. mythology that this has been quite controversial i put it got put on on instagram recently and everyone's like oh my god i can't believe you know like it was quite a big thing but the truth is like i think sourdough is just fermented flour like it really is like if you put flour and water together it ferments you don't need to put fucking grapes or rhubarb or whatever other shit people tell you to put in it it's basically fermented flour and so you know what if you chucked out your sourdough and then you mix flour and water together it will start fermenting again you know like and that's all it is like there's yeast and bacteria living in this happy bucket of sourdough starter that's that's it it's as simple as that if you ask me you know and you know what if okay so your culture after a few weeks of regular feedings will get more and more regular and active and happy and stuff like that so okay fine you know you just keep feeding it regular and regular but literally chuck out your sourdough start again you know like i just think it's it's it's a little uh precious and it you know as i said it's fermented flour so you're not naming your your starter there's no like i mean actually we have a sourdough starter at heart bakery that was given to me by gabriel bonchi which is for uh levito madre which is for panettone So we nicknamed that Danny Levito.

34:45So we have, that's the only thing that's named. All right. One name is okay. Yeah, yeah. Because like one of my pastry chefs, she named Danny Levito and it was too funny to not carry on. It's cute. Yeah, yeah. I love the sentiment. I love the controversy. I'm sure we've had plenty of bread bakers and authors who have a very different opinion, but that's the beauty of it. And okay, everyone's opinion is good. you know like whatever you think everyone has their own opinion on what's good bread and how to do things oh yeah so be it man you know what that's just there's no orthodoxy in this game all right two-part question richard describe the perfect loaf of bread of sourdough first aesthetically when you're looking at it and then next when you when you slice it and you have the crumb so yeah what's what's the perfect so also i was talking about this yesterday about perfect bread.

35:35I make bread every day. I make bread every single day. And I think I make perfect bread once or twice a year. That's it. You know, like I make good bread. I make shit bread. I make all kinds of bread, the same as every other baker. But perfect bread doesn't happen very often. And I don't know what happens, how it happens, you know, but that's what gets me out of bed every day, excited to try and make a perfect loaf of bread. And a perfect loaf of bread for me is like it kind of blows up in an oven almost four times its original size when you pick it up as a whole loaf it's huge but it's completely light it feels super light and you're like well this makes no sense like how is it so light compared to how big it is on the outside it should be a mixture of colors it should be like white from a little bit of flour from the basket and then all shades of golden into reds, into dark reds, into black on a score.

36:31Like it should have this colour that you look at it and you're like, oh my God, you know, like I really dislike seeing bread when it's just one beige golden colour. It feels like industrial at that point. Yeah, it feels industrial, exactly. Also, like this is up to the baker, but like personally, I love all these little blisters that you get on the outside of the crust. I feel like it reminds me of like when you're biting into a chicharron or something this crispy crunchiness that you get from all these amazing little bubbles and they also bring different colors to the loaf so yeah so it has a beautiful score uh or a slash like i'm not really into like all these picture scores i think that's just a bit of a waste of time i just want one big dirty slash or a couple of slashes in it and like just let it blow up how it wants to beautiful color really big uh and lightweight this is a perfect loaf yeah the inside i mean yeah holy slightly holy yeah slightly slightly what about like a moisture inside uh not gummy like uh wet but not gummy slightly holy i think too holy stupid because like fucking hell you've got to put butter and jam on that you're not gonna get it in there you know But yeah, holy, but just not crazy.

37:50With structure. Yeah, yeah. Richard, what a beautiful description. I'm taking to a bread, actually. Dan Richer in Jersey City has this bakery and pizzeria. Yeah, I'm dying to meet him. To be honest, that's the bread that you just described. Yeah, okay. He gave me a loaf one time. Okay. It's exactly what you said. I'm just giving Dan a little plug. I can't wait to meet him. Yeah. Yeah. Richard, many home cooks are intimidated by starting a bread routine. And it is a routine. We know that. We know that it's like many bread bakers will do it daily or twice a week. How can you, with your book and just your knowledge, you know, get people a little more confident to start this routine?

38:32Yeah. I mean, in a way it's challenging because looking after a sourdough, A sourdough is like a living thing that needs to be fed every day. If you want to make bread with it every day and it be really consistent and you make great bread every day, it kind of needs feeding every day. And it's really difficult to do that in your home. I've really learned that over the last couple of years since I moved to Mexico because right now I don't have a bakery. So I'm baking at home nearly every day. And if I come to New York or go here or go here, what do I do in my sourdough? Actually, I've started drying my sourdough out.

39:06I put a spoonful of active sourdough in a ton of flour and turn it into like a breadcrumb consistency. Yeah, I've heard that. And it stops it moving. And like rather than just put my wet sourdough in the fridge, that will get way too acidic. If I put this flour mix in the fridge, it kind of goes dormant. And it really is quite a nice way to keep your sourdough. So I would suggest that for home bakers, for sure, because you can't look after it day in, day out. But if you can and like you're at home and you're not going traveling, sure, you should feed it every day because you know what? The yeast and bacteria, the symbiotic relation, it needs it.

39:41It needs it to come. Like after you feed your sourdough for four hours, the yeast are starting to feed and multiply and do their thing. That's like a four hour time span at the right temperature. And then after that, they start to dwindle and that's where all the bacteria start coming into play. But if you don't feed the yeast the next day, they don't get that spike. And so I think it's really important to feed it regularly. You know, when it comes to making bread, again, like back to what I said a second ago, like you have to get into an intimate relationship with it. You have to learn it. You have to like, there's no cheat here.

40:16Like, you know, it's like learning a new language or going, learning an instrument or learning anything. Like if you don't dedicate yourself to it and do it regularly, I mean, it's not going to really. That's the joy, that Peter Bread Baker. And when you're not in the club, you're not in the club, and you're like, why are you making so much bread? But you meet these folks, and I've been able to travel with Mauricio Leo, terrific author, and he's got a large community. Yeah, he makes amazing bread, doesn't he? Amazing bread. He's so cool. And I met a bunch of bakers who went to Italy on this trip, and it's like, I get it.

40:48It's spiritual. It's like a routine. It's like meditation. It really is. Like there's something about it that is, and it's really honest and you can't, and you have to be humble. You can't be all on the shit and big shot and all this. Cause you know what? The minute you do that, you fuck it up the next day and everyone comes and looks at your bread. Like what the fuck's this shit? You know, like being humble is really important and being honest. Like at the end of the day, we all make mistakes. We all make good bread. We all make shit bread. Like that's fine. You know, like, so, yeah, I think it's a really honest, wonderful, beautiful, meditative thing.

41:25On This Is Taste, we ask guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Richard, are you ready? Yes, I'm ready. All right. The best fruit? Banana. Okay. How do you bake with bananas? You know, yeah, bacon actually, like, our bakery made the most incredible banana bread. And, you know, banana bread's a bit boring. Everyone makes banana bread. But this banana bread, you make a dry caramel and you pour it on top of your bananas in a mixer and then you add all your other ingredients and it is unbelievable. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah.

42:02Is that your recipe? You came up with that? What? You came up with that? No, no, I didn't. One of my pastry chefs came up with it. And honestly, like, there's no other banana bread. So great. The worst vegetable. You know, my worst, I love all vegetables, really. Or I try to. My worst eating vegetable is a cooked, too cooked carrot. Yes. Like when it's been in the soup for too long. Yeah, too cooked carrot. Oh, yeah. Yuck, yuck. Yeah. All right. What is your typical breakfast? Yeah, probably toast with butter and marmalade. Or butter and marmalade. Oh, marmalade. Do you make marmalade? I don't make it, no.

42:36I buy it. But I love it Yeah, yeah It reminds me of my childhood When I was with my grandparents And stuff, yeah The best dessert Yeah, for me It would probably be like A rhubarb and custardy type thing Maybe a brulee with rhubarb underneath it I love creamy, sweet And I love sour together Yeah, so Something like that The best bakery in the world That you do not run Oh, shit, man Okay, so wildflower bread which is in Freestone, California, near Occidental. It's an amazing hippie bakery. The thing that's sad about that is during COVID, they closed the actual shop, and so you can't actually go in anymore.

43:23But, like, it's true to its own identity. And then Mexico City, I love Rosetta. Oh, yeah. I love Elena. I think she's the queen of bread. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. I love this. it's ubuntu i worked at ubuntu when i moved to california it was in napa valley and jeremy fox i think is the chef's chef you know like i said danny tanagli is the dj dj jeremy fox is a legend if you ask me and i worked for him and i loved it oh man yeah thank him well in the in the in the acknowledgement yeah yeah i love that part of your book your best restaurant meal of the past year? Yeah, I think Bibby.

44:04It's a restaurant in London in Mayfair. It's Indian food. Chet is the chef. I think it's incredible. Like it's not what you expect. It's definitely worth a visit. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Yeah, I would say a Reuben on Marble Rye. Oh, man. I love the choice. Okay, so where did you first encounter the Reuben? Because I'm imagining it wasn't in London. No, it was in the States. I didn't even know what marble rye was until I moved to the States. So I fell in love with the bread. I think it's an incredible bread. I love caraway seeds in the bread. The marble rye, the way it's brown and white all in one marble thing.

44:45It makes me so happy just looking at it. And then Ruben's was here for sure. And it would have been in Petaluma in one of the sandwich places. Well, Richard Hart, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you very much.

45:06Lucas Volger, welcome to This Is Taste. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me on here. I'm really, truly a big fan of this podcast, and I always learn so much, and you guys do such good work. It's an honor to be here. So kind of you. Thanks for checking it out. I appreciate it. Lots of episodes in the archives. So many. Yeah. And we're here to talk about a lot of things. You know, you've been really a fixture of food writing and cookbooks for a while and you've written for taste and just I've loved collaborating with you on pieces. But we're here for the bread machine book, which is to me such an accomplishment.

45:40I think you've done something that I think others have tried. There are other bread machine books, but this is the best one. I mean, you're giving us a reason not just to bake bread, but to bake bread more simply with a bread machine. I'll just ask you from the jump, what drew you to the project to use a bread machine as like the focus of a bread book? Well, my work over the past 15 years, I've focused on like I've written a lot of vegetarian cookbooks and focused on sort of vegetarian stuff. But my first food job was working at a bakery in Boise, Idaho, which is a bread bakery. Um, and that was really what got me excited about doing professional work in food.

46:20Um, and so I, my, my deepest roots are in baking, even though that's not really the, those aren't the types of recipes that I work on all the time. And so, um, bread has always, I mean, you know, through the tartine years, I had my sourdough starter going. Um, I've put a few bread recipes in various cookbooks. It's always been something I do, but it's not really anything that I like advertise or even consider myself to be like a total professional about. The bread machine is interesting to me because as I write in the book, it was my first experience of like cooking in the kitchen growing up in the early 90s.

46:58And it's sort of, as I write in the book, the breads that we made at the time were these like gummy ones from a box mix. And like by any sort of measure, they were not necessarily good bread, but I thought that they were really delicious bread. And it was exciting to me to be baking with my own hands and making things with my own hands. And that kind of like activated this interest. And then it was, you know, five or six years ago that I had, you know, and then as I when I worked in this professional bakery, I was pretty sure I outgrew the bread machine. But then a few like five or six years ago, I had an opportunity to test out a bunch of bread machines for like a product testing for Epicurious.

47:38and um it kind of made you know i went into it very skeptically and i was like oh this is actually kind of cool because i'd always thought that the bread machine was this like set it and forget it like as i write in the book it was like a replacement for a bread making practice you know as i'd gone through various stages of my life like you know it's definitely a practice keeping a sourdough starter you know the bread sort of owns the schedule you you build your life around making the bread. And I thought the bread machine was supposed to just replace all that with, you know, with the press of a button.

48:10And I found that it was actually great for enhancing a bread machine practice or a bread baking practice. Like there's certainly ways you can use it to just dump all the ingredients, press start, and you'll have a loaf of bread in a couple hours. But what I found myself doing was, you know, isolating certain features and being able to sort of automate or streamline certain aspects of the bread making process, like the kneading and the proofing, and then having a little bit of hands-on time with the shaping, maybe baking it in my home oven, or doing it all in the bread machine. But it just became this thing that I realized was a little bit more flexible than I had thought.

48:48Oh, I mean, there's hacks, you call them. You're basically hacking into the code a little bit. And it's brilliant. I think it really does skip steps, but it doesn't fully change the way you're baking bread at home. You're still making something, right? I want to ask you, I think for our listeners who've maybe heard of a bread machine but don't really know much more, how does it actually work? It's actually pretty simple. So, you know, there's so many out there, but all of them consist of a couple parts. There's like a pan that serves as sort of like the baking pan and also the mixing pan. It has this attachment of a paddle that fits in the bottom.

49:30Some of them have two paddles. My favorite bread machine, the Zojirushi Vutaroso Plus, has two paddles. That's from Japan. That's from Japan. They make the best rice cooker as well. It has two paddles. So there's a pan with a paddle in it. Then the overall machine, you sort of insert the pan and it snaps in, and this connects the paddle to a motor, and then that mixes the bread. At the bottom of the machine, in most models of the bottom of the machine, there's a heating coil, and that's like the heating element that sets the temperature for proofing and for baking. And then it just kind of seals up and there's some kind of computer mechanism that has the secrets to all the various programs for like making wheat bread, regular white bread or just proofing dough or whatever.

50:13And there's incremental differences in those settings. Yeah. Tied to the recipes. So what I like about the book, and I think this is really important, is you have obviously a process and ingredients, but you're really clear that you have to go in order. There's like an order to dropping in the ingredients. right? I think that's pretty true for all bread machines. Sometimes, you know, a lot of the cookbooks of the early 2000s and 90s, you know, they say put the ingredients into the bread machine in the order that your manual specifies. But every bread machine that I use had the same, which is you put the wet ingredients in the bottom and the dry ingredients in the top and yeast last because you don't want to have the yeast and the salt interact because I guess that can interfere with the yeast activity.

51:02But I just put all, for every bread machine that I've used and I tested out, a dozen of them had the same system. So I just say like put the wet ingredients on the bottom and dry ingredients at the top. Yeah, and I mean the recipes are written with such skill too. And there's so many versions of bread and styles of bread. I want to zoom out briefly and you admit that the bread machine is not perfect, which I love because you can't just like say that everything is perfect for a contraption to bake i mean there's lots of different variables so what what was what's imperfect about it but what why does that make it such a cool thing to cook with the baking is really the the weakest part of the process just because it's like a lot of that so the heating element is you know most of them have at the bottom the zoji rushi that i mentioned it has uh it circulates the heat and has some kind of keeping up them at the top.

51:57But they just don't bake evenly. The temperature is relatively low, so you don't often get much of a crust. The coloring is often uneven. Sometimes even like the evenness of the crumb because of the baking isn't great. The better bread machines are obviously better doing this. What I've done in the book to circumnavigate this sort of weakness of the bread machine is give you sort of two options for each recipe, which is that you can sort of mix and proof the dough in the bread machine and then shape and bake it in your home oven, which is primarily what I do these days just because I also like, I like handling the dough and I'd like that it produces a more attractive loaf.

52:38Or you can use a sort of set and forget it, just press a button. Yeah. And you can try it both ways, of course. I think it's such a key point because I think many maybe don't realize that the mixing and proofing part can be done automatically and that saves you time right like that would be something that a busy person who wants to bake bread but also wants to shape and use their own oven this is like the ultimate kind of hack to that right yeah it's great i mean it's so great i know that as i was working on this i was like why is this so much easier than like grabbing my like kitchen aid stand mixer and just mixing the dough you know using the dough hook and you know leaving it there in the warm kitchen to proof.

53:16And it just, first off, it has like, it's a little warmer than what they typically recommend for proofing dough. It's usually around higher than 80 degrees. And I think ideally it's like 75 to 80. So it proofs faster probably than non-bread machine breads. But it's so automated. And like, I'm a evangelist for the digital scale. And you just take the bread machine pan, set it on the digital scale, put your ingredients in there, plug it in the bread machine and press a button. And like the dough mixes, It contains, there's no mess. You don't use any measuring cups when you use, you know, obviously when you use the scale, it just is so easy.

53:53And it's really nice for making like pizza dough or for making cinnamon rolls or, you know, those just when you only need the dough and then you're going to shape and portion things off or, I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. Once you've made a bunch of bread, I think you do this and you're like, oh yeah, this is great. You've explained it really well and I'll just clarify and say like, When you're using the KitchenAid and using traditional bread baking methods, there's a mess. It's kind of messy. It's kind of all over the place, and you kind of have to transfer. But if you have that proofing step without it leaving the vessel, that's just like— And then you have this nice dough.

54:30And then take us through the way you would maybe not hit the button and say bake, but shape it. What's that process like? Most machines have a dough function. and so with that on most of them it just it mixes the dough and then kneads it and then um does uh it it goes through like the bulk rise of the dough and sometimes there's a couple punch downs in there but it just takes you through the process up until you would take it up until the machine would then do the final shaping and let it proof and then bake it explain what a punch down is for those who don't know uh it just deflates the dough yeah um so that it gives it a little bit more strength yeah and like that's key because when you are baking bread without a automated machine you have to actually set your watch and you know return to the kitchen to do punch downs yeah yeah back and forth back and forth there's some supervision required yeah exactly and and you know you that that's bread baking is great you probably do that all the time but like we don't have that time yeah this is i mean yeah exactly this is what i think this is i'm i'm like not the first person to be like the bread machine is amazing and such a time saver this is you know i had thought it had been this 90s appliance that went out of fashion and then once i was working on this book and had that assignment i realized like oh these never went away people have been obsessed with these for the last 30 years and uh and and many you know thousands i have no idea but like many people let's just say millions passionate about their bread machines oh without i'm gonna I say millions.

56:03Slowing down. At least in the world. But we'll say in America, millions of using the bread machine, I think. Yeah. That's fair. And this episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. If you're one of those last-minute shoppers, you might know the feeling. Ideas are running low and the clock is ticking. Here's a fun idea. Aura Frames. Aura Frames is the solution with a gift that feels personal, a little curated, and sent with love. and a gift that can be purchased in no time with a few clicks of the mouse. Aura frames are great. They sent me one to check out and it was really cool and dumb simple to set up.

56:40I loaded photos using the app and it was displaying them instantly. There are no limits to the amount of photos you can load and you can customize messages with each photo. And here's the deal. You can preload an Aura frame with photos and have it directly sent to that special person in your life, gift wrapped and all. There will be no price tag and you can include a personalized message. Think about it. All those photos from this past summer's family reunion delivered in a digital frame. That is pretty cool. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get$35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code TASTE at checkout.

57:23That's A-U-R-A frames dot com promo code TASTE. The deal is exclusive to listeners and frame sell out fast, so order yours now to get in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies.

58:01I felt like a drug dealer trying to cook dinner. Yeah, man, I have so been there. ButcherBox is a true exception. I was sent a box of premium beef and pork and was blown away by the quality and variety. There was 100 % grass-fed pasteurized ribeye, tri-tip, and ground sirloin for my favorite at-home smash burger recipe. George Motes, you better watch your back. For pork, they sent me a beautiful center-cut pork loin for slow roasting. I was super impressed, and I haven't even talked about the ribs, which I cooked in my Instant Pot. There was a rub of salt, white pepper, and togarashi, and I pressure-cooked with water and apple cider vinegar.

58:41It was incredible. These ButcherBox ribs are amazing. For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. You know, I think part of making bread, right, is this a practice. And I've had like Mauricio Leo in here talking about his practice with the perfect loaf.

59:24And I love the way he writes so colorfully about bread baking. And when you meet a bread baker, you get into the sense that it's part of like a daily or weekly thing. It's a life. Talk about that a little bit about why baking bread has so many benefits. I just read the Richard Hart cookbook and he was like, there's going to be so many like bum loaves, but you just keep going. And then you get a really good one. And then the next day, there's a bum loaf or the next day. So it's just like it really is a practice in the sense that like it's not a perfect result every time. It's like it's just the motocrine of a dial.

1:00:00And like there's a learning every time. And there's like always these factors that are changing regardless of like how much you try to control them. and it just teaches, I mean, it just activates all the senses. It engages your brain in such a way. It becomes like this ever elongating, you know, thing that you do that you learn from. And then you have like fresh bread all the time, which is amazing. Which is amazing. Let's talk about that a little bit because I think having fresh bread has lots of benefits. I mean, if you have a loaf for two a week, you know, you're obviously saving some money.

1:00:32There's like that element. But also like what's it like having fresh bread in your house? I mean, it's great. It's dangerous because it's, you know, when I was working on during the like busiest parts of working on this book, there would be, you know, four or five loaves of bread out at any given time. And, you know, I love bread, but also need to get my vegetables in and all the other all the other things. So I think it's best when you do like a loaf every other day. Yeah, yeah, definitely. But it's just nice to have like fresh bread around. Yeah, so nice. The smell is so good. It smells amazing.

1:01:06You have like a family, you want to make a ton of sandwiches or, you know, with your dinner, you know, you want to have a fresh loaf of bread there. Yeah. And I mean, this is when I get together with my family. My brother lives out in Nevada. He'll be like, oh, we're going to make burgers or something. I'll be like, oh, you know what? Let me whip up the hamburger buns. And it's actually you have, you know, a couple hours. You can I don't know if it sounds kind of crazy to be like, I'm just going to whip up hamburger buns. But once you are in the sort of rhythm of having a quote unquote bread practice, it really is not that big of a deal.

1:01:38And the bread machine, I swear to God, you just dump the stuff in there. And then a couple hours later, you're going to have fresh hamburger buns coming out of the oven. Very cool. So Lucas, how did you decide on organizing the book? And take us through the way a baker can kind of use the book. I definitely wanted to have like a chapter of sort of distinctive sweet recipes and distinctive savory recipes. I wanted to have a chapter of classics and I wanted to have a chapter of like sourdough recipes. So those were kind of in there from the beginning. Then I found as I was working this whole like dough component of being able to just like quickly mix the dough in the machine was so appealing to me.

1:02:21And just made so it just really made everyday baking. I don't know. It just opened that chat. It opened my kitchen up so magically that I wanted to have a whole chapter I called loaf adjacent in the cookbook. And that's like pizza doughs or focaccia or cinnamon rolls or things like that. And so once I sort of got that organization down, it was a matter of narrowing down the recipes and like which ones sort of feel like standalone recipes that aren't necessarily like variations on another one. and that give the book a full round sort of flavor profile, if that makes sense. It makes perfect sense.

1:03:02And you see it when you just open the book. You've got the sourdough section, which to me, we love sourdough. And you talk about, of course, what a starter is and how you make a starter. But you can actually use a bread machine for sourdough. You can get these coveted flavors pretty easily, right? I did find – I don't have like 100 % sourdough breads in here. They're like hybrid. Yeah, they're like your version of it for the bread machine. Yeah, so you use a little bit of instant yeast, and that just helps to sort of follow the timeline of these preset programs that the bread machine have. But there are people who do.

1:03:40And if you want to make 100 % sourdough loaf in a bread machine, you just isolate each individual function. So you mix the dough and then you proof it and you either pull it out of the machine or just leave it in the machine unplugged and let it proof for as many hours, you know, do the bulk rise as long. The same thing after you shape it. You could just isolate the different functions and bake in any kind of bread in the bread machine, really. Yeah, I love that section. And what about like the let's talk about the sweet side, because that to me, you can make dessert in here quite often. Yeah.

1:04:11Yeah. So there's a dessert chapter in addition to the loaf adjacent. And there is a cookbook that I love and every sort of veg head person I know loves is Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. And she has this yeasted sugar cake recipe in there. And there's only like a handful of desserts in it. But I love them. And one of them is this like yeasted cake. Like, I've come to learn that this is like a style of sort of like pre-leavening, pre-like baking powder, baking soda cake. And it's not too sweet. And it's coated in sugar. And the fact that it involves yeast came to mind as I was working on this book.

1:04:51I was like, oh, you could make like one of those not too sweet yeasted cakes. And so I have a whole chapter of these. They're kind of hard to describe because they come out of the bread machine looking like a bread machine loaf of bread. and I give them a little bit of like adornment, like a sprinkling of sugar or something. And they have like almost as, it's somewhere between like a loaf of bread and like a pound cake texture. They're a little bit squishy, but they're so nice for being not that sweet. And the bread machine is like so perfect for making them because when you make it by hand, it's kind of a sticky, difficult to work with dough, but the bread machine streamlines and solves for that.

1:05:30And then you pull it out of the machine and you shape it? No. These ones actually are best if you just use the preset function. It's like a pan. So it's like a pan loaf. Yeah, exactly. You can. You can sort of transfer it to a cake pan if you want to do that or a loaf pan. But the bread pan is going to be perfect for, I'm thinking like coffee break, like 3 p.m., 4 p.m., have a nice— There's a really good like buckwheat sort of breakfast cake that's buckwheat flour and a little bit of a streusel-y component on the top. It's so good with tea and coffee in the morning or like an afternoon tea situation.

1:06:06I mean, you could do this the night before in some ways, right? Essentially, I mean, you just like set it, you bake it, and it's there in the morning. And the bread's done in the morning, yeah. Yeah, using the machine's presets. Yeah, I mean, there's a stigma. We haven't talked about it. There's like a little bit of a stigma with this machine. And I think like home cooks always aspire to do everything from scratch and especially with project cooking and baking. But that's not real talk, right? That's not real. Yeah. You don't have time. I mean, I'm just like the people that I'm in my career that I've been so inspired by are people who truly cook every day.

1:06:40And I, you know, I like used to teach classes fairly regularly. And and people would come to these classes because they're like, I want to eat more vegetables or I want my family more vegetables. or my kids went to college and just now I can eat what I want to eat and I want to eat more vegetables. But I was like, you've been cooking with your family for the last 20 years. You know, what do I have to teach you? You are so deep in this practice. And so I just have so much respect for people who really do cook every day. And the bread machine to me is something that makes it possible to have fresh bread every day.

1:07:16And there's ways to make really great bread using it too. So let's go back to a little gear talk. So you did this test for Epi and you tested all these brands, but you landed on one that you really love. Tell us about this one machine. And this is an endorsement. I mean, you should get some money, by the way. Well, no, this is not an endorsement, but they have helped me put a giveaway out there so you can win one of these. Oh, right. So it's the Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus. It is a behemoth of a bread machine. It's like rather than one of those sort of like tall, narrow canister style appliances, it looks like it's kind of like bigger than a toaster oven.

1:07:52It's like one of those big Breville toaster ovens. It has a traditional shaped loaf pan. So if you bake the bread entirely in the machine, you're going to have a normal looking slice of bread rather than like the tall ones that come from the R2-D2 ones. These have two paddles. And so the motor is a lot stronger, too. But they have two paddles, so it needs the dough with two paddles, and it makes a lot stronger doughs. As I mentioned, there's a heating element that is in the top, so they bake a lot more evenly. They also, I haven't seen any other bread machine that does this, but there's this capacity to create custom programs.

1:08:32So you can create three custom programs, which is really fantastic if you're somebody who wants to be able to really customize things, and you know what you're doing and you know how to make bread. So for like a sourdough situation where you wanted a much longer bulk rise, you can set that. So you can mix all the dough in there, set the bulk rise. You can set the punchdowns, everything from there, pull it out, bake it in the oven, or then continue on and have the machine shape it and then bake it. And if it needs longer baking time, it needs less baking time. You can create these settings. So that's a really nice feature if you want to have more control.

1:09:09And that's a little more expensive, right? Yeah, they're like$400. Yeah,$400. I mean, that's a big investment. Are there any other models or like more affordable? Well, I think if this idea of using the bread machine to primarily like mix and proof dough appeals, then any bread machine is going to do that really pretty well. Even the cheapest ones. The distinguishing factors are really the baking. so if you don't plant a bacon at all the time you can use any of them I have like a Cuisinart so I cross-tested all these recipes on the Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus yeah yeah and then the you should get like five bucks wait until you see that they've been so like friendly and supportive no they're great but and then on the cheaper sort of like$60 Cuisinart and again like everything kind of works the baking is where the nicer machine stands apart.

1:10:06Definitely. I mean,$60, that's a little better. I mean, that's nice. And you can find these on like used appliances, you know, like Facebook Marketplace or there's this company called, now I'm blanking on the name of it, but they basically have set up a rental company for appliances. So people who live in New York and have lived in a kitchen space don't need to have an ice cream machine, but they'd like to be able to make ice cream. They do have this for bread machines, so you can sort of rent them for a few days. Oh, that's fun. And a lot of cities, these things are popping up. See if you like it.

1:10:36I mean, if you're in a town with a goodwill. Yeah, exactly. There's some bread machines in those goodwills. Because there was a boom, like a little bit of the history, like the 90s. Is that when it was? The 80s? The 90s, early to sort of late 90s is my experience of it. Again, I think there's a lot of people who have been using them very religiously ever since then. but I remember just when I was a kid I was so infatuated with it because my friends' moms were like making this bread and I was like, what is that? This fresh squishy bread that you can like smear with margarine and it's so delicious and then they all kind of like disappeared slowly after that.

1:11:15Well, definitely pick up the book. I love it. It's such a wonderful addition to other bread books you may have. Again, Perfect Loaf is a great one. I love that book. I love that book too, yeah. Yeah, those are all both terrific books But this one's a nice accompaniment to those other books. Talk about your Substack. Oh, yeah. What have you been writing these days? I've checked it out. It's nice work. Oh, thank you. I've been going for like two years, maybe a little over two years. And, you know, I've been doing this for a while. I started out with Blogspot and Tumblr and like just kind of as one thing changes to the next, I hop aboard.

1:11:52Substack is great. It's once a week I send out a recipe. Typically, right now I'm trying to, like, respond to what people want, and it feels like people are really wanting, like, sort of high-protein vegetarian recipes. So I do mostly that, though I throw some bread in there and throw some desserts in there. It's just, like, nice to have. I love the schedule, the structure of it. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing to have, you know, a recipe arrive in your inbox. What's the subsect called? It's called Family Friend, but it's myname.subsect.com. I will link to that in the show notes. Definitely subscribe.

1:12:30Check it out. Lucas Vulgar, thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure.

1:12:40This Is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, Director of Media Production and Development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.