Evidently Cat Bordhi has an instruction in one of her knitting patterns that you should check the fit of your sock toe by trying it on. If it’s too big, “pinch off N stitches” meaning literally pinch the extra fabric with your fingers and see how many stitches you need to remove to get it to fit.
Needless to say, this instruction – and the concomitant Ravelry thread, titled “What does pinch off mean” – sends me into fits of hysterical giggling. Particularly when people posted comments just to clutch their pearls in horror and say, Well I never!
I think you can see where I’m going with this.
I made a loaf! Would you like to see a picture of the loaf that I made?
In all seriousness, this loaf did turn out better. I wouldn’t call it “a success,” but it was definitely “less bad.”
You see, the thing is that bread-baking people are crazy for weighing their ingredients. Not weighing your ingredients – or committing the sin of asking “How much is that in cups?” – is almost as bad as making a poop joke on the main Ravelry boards (the “Big Six”).
For the first recipe, I diligently weighed out so many ounces of starter, so many ounces of water, and so many ounces of flour. Turns out that if you weigh out the ounces of starter and flour, but measure the ounces of water in a measuring cup, it works out better. Less sloppy-wet.
After all, no one likes to pinch off a sloppy-wet loaf.
Everyone needs a bit of sloppy wet loaf occasionally … I’m just sayin’ LOL
You wrong.
I find there is altogether too much horrified pearl-clutching in our culture these days.
The nice thing about homemade bread is that even when it’s not great, it’s still good…
(Except for the loaf of Swedish rye I made 30+ years ago… The recipe writers must have been on crack. One bite, and I threw the whole loaf away.)
What Gayle said about homemade bread, unless you cool the loaf of bread on a rack over a freshly washed dishtowel, in which case the bread comes out tasting like detergent, softeners and perfuming agents. Blech.
The first time I made bread, it was in an (absent) friend’s well-stocked kitchen. The recipe called for yeast, and there it was in a big jar on the shelf, clearly labeled Brewer’s Yeast. That bread truly was inedible. It went to the neighbor’s chickens.
When I first read the title about pinching a loaf, I almost didn’t scroll down (I read Mad Magazine, can’t you tell?) Anyhoo, the bread looks delish!
I’ve had homemade bread before and I think its great. Enjoy your breadmaking fun
Awesome.
ha!
Hahah! I love everything about this post.
I think my pearls just exploded.