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To me, all bread is extraordinary. The very act of transforming flour, water, salt, and yeast into something golden and warm and crackly-crusted seems like an alchemy approaching pure magic. I grew up in a household with nothing but homemade bread — my mother, despite having four daughters and a farm to run, made bread at least twice a week:
airy ciabatta, squishy potato sandwich loaves, darkly molasses-tinged anadama, and raisin bread fragrant with cinnamon. Watching her hands at work, kneading in a steady rhythm that seemed innate as the dough smoothed out from rough and sticky to supple and smooth — her fingers dancing nimbly over the taut surface of the dough to pinch a seam shut — was as close to meditation as I got without knowing it. Step beyond the humble yet ever-present thrill of everyday bread, and you enter an entire universe of truly spectacular bread: I'm talking about jaw-dropping, can-I-actually-bake-that-myself bread. I write to you all today just as we wrap up our Extraordinary Bread series, where we selected and showcased a dozen phenomenal recipes that we at King Arthur are most excited about baking this year. My favorite of all 12 is the intricate-looking Scaccia (above), a swirled and layered loaf that combines thin strata of dough (using '00' flour) with cheese and tomato sauce. Dozens of you at home have already started showing us your own versions, and bakers everywhere are pulling it off beautifully. As someone who could easily subsist on grilled cheese alone, the gooey puddle of cheese cradled inside the boat-like Khachapuri bread might take my second top spot. As for the rest, each is as appealing as the next — not only in flavor and looks, but in the absolute joy I get from baking something intriguing. Something to demand my attention for a slow Saturday. Something that grounds me in the act of baking: the push-pull of kneading dough, the careful concentration required to twist Cinnamon Star Bread into shape or delicately snip slits in an Olive and Onion Fougasse or gently top soft balls of dough with a thin disk of sugar cookie-like topping to make Cinnamon Conchas. It warms me to think of you all, out there in your own kitchens, experiencing the joy of these 12 recipes. You can find them all in our Extraordinary Bread recipe collection; share yours with us on social media if you like with #extraordinarybread.
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