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When you are trying something new, whether it’s budgeting, bread baking, menu planning, cooking, sewing, or any number of other things, you should expect to be rather terrible at first.
Very few people are experts at things right away, and you are probably no exception.
If you expect greatness at your first attempt, you will be prone to quitting when your first efforts don’t meet your standards.
(“I’m a failure! I’ll never be able to do this! How come everyone else is good at this and I’m not?”)
But if you can look at your iffy first attempts as normal steps on the way to mastery, you will be motivated to carry on.
In The Little Book of Talent, Daniel Coyle says, “Treat your early efforts as experiments, not verdicts.”
In other words, if your first loaf of bread is a little flat, here’s what it doesn’t mean: You’re never going to be able to make a good loaf of bread.
It just means that you are a beginner, and beginners do not produce loaves that are as good as an experienced baker’s loaves.
Most of us can develop good skills if we will hang in there and practice.
And coming into that practice with some reasonable expectations can actually help us want to keep on practicing.
P.S. This post is not about baking per se, but in case you’re interested in taking up yeast baking, here’s a list of all my yeast bread recipes.
If you want some no-knead beginner recipes, you could try:
or
And probably the easiest kneading bread recipe I have is the one for French bread.
