There was a time in my distant youth when I followed all the rules. In that distant youth, within my family, I had the nick name of Miss Goode Two Shoes. No one could call me that today. Follow the recipe, are you kidding. I wonder if it happened when the Bread Baking Babes invented themselves and proposed: The Rule is, there are no rules!

This month we’re in Cathy’s kitchen. On her blog, Bread Experience, you will one of the best examples of how to write the perfect and easy to follow recipe you are likely to find on the internet or in a book. I absolutely LOVE the section titled “Choosing your loaf size”.

With such a perfect recipe/rule, how/what did the devil in me make me do? The first time I baked this I used the suggested 45 grams rye, 195 grams golden whole wheat (King Arthur), brushed the flap/tongue with a mix of olive oil, butter, garlic and rosemary. No AP flour and where did that garlic rosemary thing come from?

Now these were good…but then I thought I should try the way Cathy wrote it…

I just couldn’t do it. Cathy gave us all kinds of flour combinations but none did I follow exactly. The second time I baked these loaves I used the 45 grams spelt flour she suggested AND INSTEAD of 195 AP I used 50 grams rye, 50 grams more spelt and then oh my goodness I again used the golden whole wheat. It had really been my intent to use regular AP but I just couldn’t do it. And then to compound my lack of follow through I put 5 cloves of garlic in my garlic press and folded that into the dough with the last two folds.

Positively amazing avocado toast!

Can you tell I’m really garlic lover? Well, the garlic in these was heavenly and that I will do again. I may roast it the next time.

Skip on over the Cathy’s for the best and proper recipe, follow the rule for glorious loaves … or not and still have glorious loaves.

Check out our Facebook group and the BBB blogs (links below) to see our baking results.

Bread Experience – Cathy (host kitchen)
Karen’s Kitchen Stories – Karen 
A Messy Kitchen – Kelly
Judy’s Gross Eats – Judy 
My Kitchen In Half Cups– Tanna
blog from OUR kitchen – Elizabeth

Now I love looking up ‘where did that come from’. This is what Wikipedia says about goode two shoes: The phrase “goody two-shoes”describes an excessively virtuous, self-righteous, or overly obedient person. It originates from a 1765 children’s story, [The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes] published in London, about a poor orphan girl so happy to receive a pair of shoes that she constantly told everyone she had “two shoes”.