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Get Your Head in the Game

Henry Hunter
Organized bread baking workspace with weighed ingredients in bowls, scale, bench scraper, and recipe card on clean counter

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Read the Recipe Like a Roadmap

Start by reading the recipe from top to bottom. Not skimming. Reading. Pay attention to the order things happen in. Notice where timing matters, where ingredients need to be at room temperature, where you’ll need both hands free. A recipe is a roadmap, and you don’t want to discover a detour when you’re already halfway there.

Hands holding open bread baking cookbook with sourdough starter jar, flour bowl, scale, and whisk in background on rustic wooden table
Read the recipe from top to bottom before you start. It’s your roadmap.

Weigh, Measure, and Set Up

Then weigh your ingredients. Get out what you need. Set up your workspace a few minutes early. This isn’t fussiness. This is how you get your head in the game.

Because here’s what happens when you don’t: something pops up. The phone rings. The dog needs out. Your kid has a question. And suddenly you’re scrambling, trying to remember if you added the salt, wondering where you put the bench scraper, watching your dough overproof while you hunt for a clean towel.

When you’re set up, you can handle the interruption and come right back. One thing goes sideways instead of three.

What Mise en Place Really Means

The French call this mise en place. Everything in its place.

Mr. Sherman, the man who taught me what I know about baking, translated it a little differently. He said it meant “get your shit together.” For years, that’s what I thought it meant. Turns out the real translation is more elegant, but honestly? Both versions are true.

Bread baking mise en place with open recipe book, digital scale, measuring cups, flour in glass bowl, salt, and rolling pin on wooden counter in bright kitchen
Everything in its place. A few minutes of prep saves you from chaos mid-bake.

Set Yourself Up for Success

Set yourself up for success. Read the recipe. Weigh your ingredients. Clear your counter. Then bake.

Want to Keep Learning?

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Think of it as your baking reference library, always open, always ready.

See What’s Inside →

Get Your Head in the Game

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Get Your Head in the Game by Henry Hunter

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Get Your Head in the Game by Henry Hunter

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Fair season is here and the entry deadlines close before most bakers start thinking about it. Here’s the six-week prep timeline, what judges actually score, how to pick your category, and the 2026 dates for South Carolina and North Carolina.

Get Your Head in the Game by Henry Hunter

About Henry Hunter

Henry Hunter is the author of six books on bread, including Sourdough for the Rest of Us and From Oven to Market. He learned to bake challah from a German baker named Herr Sherman during his military service, and now leads the 50,000-member Baking Great Bread at Home community and Crust & Crumb Academy. Perfection is not required. Progress is.

⭐ Crust & Crumb Academy is ProveWorth Certified, rated 5.0 from 61 verified reviews. Read the reviews.

4 responses to “Get Your Head in the Game”

  1. Henry Hunter Avatar
    Henry Hunter

    Kimberly,
    You just said something that stopped me cold: “a small alchemy, a way of turning hollows between drywall into a home.”

    That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
    Because bread is exactly that. Four ingredients. Flour, water, salt, wild yeast. Simple stuff, right? But when they come together, something happens that science can explain but never fully captures. The yeast wakes up. The gluten builds structure. The dough rises and falls and rises again, like it’s breathing. And somewhere in that process, raw ingredients become something that can actually sustain a human life.

    That’s not just chemistry. That’s transformation.

    I think about this a lot. How bread has been the foundation of civilization for thousands of years. How the smell of it baking connects us to every generation that came before. When you pull a loaf from the oven and that scent fills your kitchen, you’re participating in something ancient and ongoing. You’re doing what your great-great-grandmother did, and her grandmother before her.

    And you’re right about the comfort. There’s a reason we call it “breaking bread” with someone. There’s a reason every culture has some version of it. Bread doesn’t just fill bellies. It fills space. It makes a house feel lived in. It says “someone cares enough to do this slow, patient work.”

    Your poetry and your baking come from the same place, I think. Both are acts of making something from almost nothing. Both require patience, attention, and a willingness to let the process unfold. Both leave something behind that wasn’t there before.

    Keep baking. Keep writing. The world needs more people who understand that these small alchemies are what hold everything together.

    Warmly,
    Henry

  2. Kimberly Vargas Agnese Avatar
    Kimberly Vargas Agnese

    Hi Henry!

    Thanks! What an honor! I admire those who commit so much time to understanding the ways of baking and personally find people who have the gift of passion for this… and other somewhat lost arts … fascinating… basket weavers , herbalists among a few others that utterly intrigue me .

    A lot of my time is spent writing advocacy poetry…
    with one book out there and other projects underway, baking is for me, a small alchemy, a way of turning hollows between drywall into a home where the scent of vanilla rests in overstuffed arm chairs… the hope of comfort drawing me away from this sometimes overwhelming world.

  3. Henry Hunter Avatar
    Henry Hunter

    I just subscribed to your blog. I look forward to getting to know you better.

  4. Kimberly Vargas Agnese Avatar
    Kimberly Vargas Agnese

    I love collecting and reading cook books.. they take me to such a warm cozy place..

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