Free The Yarn Whisperer by Clara Parkes Page A

back together again.

BRIOCHE

    I LOVE TO BAKE. Depending on the day, I might even love it more than knitting. Feeding and clothing people go hand in hand, two primal human needs that were once the purview of families and communities. Today, faraway factories and machines spit out thousands of loaves of bread and up to a million articles of clothing in a single week. Those of us who still choose to make these things by hand? We’ve been relegated to the “artisanal” domain, creating now from choice rather than need.
    Maybe it’s the dough that attracts me to baking, as yarn attracts me to knitting. We manipulate both raw materials—we wrap, twist, pull, tug, tap, fold, and stir—to form something greater than the sum of its parts. Considering how symbolically similar yarn and dough are, I find it surprising that only one knitted stitch has been named after a baked good: the brioche.
    Brioche is a sweet, buttery, yeasted dough that’s tinted gold from eggs. It is perhaps the single most tempting dough to eat raw, its complex sweet and savory flavors balanced by a satisfying caramel-like chew. Yet when baked, it puffs up, up, up into an airy crumb of a pastry.
    The traditional brioche is baked in a small round pan, slightly deeper and more angled than that of a cupcake. It emerges golden brown with its center puffed up like a giant nipple. But the dough also makes a bread that, when sliced, dredged in egg, fried crisp, and then slathered in maple syrup, has been known to make even the most discerning adults moan with pleasure.
    Brioche
stitch,
on the other hand, is based on a trio of increases, slipped stitches, and decreases. Combined and repeated at regular intervals, they form both the yeast and the kneading action for your fibery dough. The resulting fabric is dense yet springy, with deep furrows that have a look of ribbed corrugation. No nipples to be found.
    I think everything should be named after a baked good. People were always calling me Éclair when I was growing up. I know a parakeet in Oakland named Baguette. And if I had a child, no matter if it were a boy or a girl, I’d be sorely tempted to name it Croissant.
    The croissant is the perfect knitted pastry. It is a product of slow, steady patience—and yet undeniable simplicity—involving nothing more than flour, yeast, sugar, salt, butter, and milk. These ingredients are the culinary equivalent of hearty wool fibers, perfectly willing to be all sorts of things.
    As in knitting, the magic of croissants lies in the process, in what your hands
do
with the dough. After an initial mixing, kneading, and resting—the casting-on of your materials—you add the magic amalgamating ingredient: butter.
    Then, it’s simply a matter of rolling, folding, and chilling. You roll, fold, and chill again. The chilling and resting are perhaps the most essential parts of the process. Dough needs time to rest. Let those buttery stitches settle into their new fabric, perhaps stockinette?
    A few years ago, Clare and I were stuck at home for Christmas, just the two of us in our farmhouse on the hill, while everybody else lounged by the pool with my mother in Arizona. I decided I needed a capital-P Project, something big that would keep me from feeling lonely. I looked through Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
to find the longest, most involved recipe—and the answer was croissants.
    Her masterful recipe documents the process better than any other I’ve seen since. It’s written clearly, helpfully, and without a hint of intimidation. I followed it, step by step, and on the third day we feasted on the most flaky, succulent, and flavorful croissants I’ve ever had—up there with the ones I consumed fresh daily when I lived in France. So astonished and smitten was I that I forgot to feel gloomy about being away from family over the holidays. If anything, we were both happy not to have to share our