Singing Bread

Some time ago, when I visited Bobolink Dairy, a small grass-fed dairy and bakery in New Jersey, I watched their baker make hundreds of loaves of bread in a wood-fired brick oven with a flue temperature of over 600 degrees. But the most memorable event of the day occurred when she pulled the finished boules out of the oven. On hitting the relatively cooler air (it was summer) of the bakery, the loaves all started to crackle and pop, making a symphony.

"They're singing!" she cried. Well, I'd only experienced that singing once myself, when I'd baked outdoors in February in my clay oven, but for some reason yesterday I pulled a loaf out of my kitchen oven and it started singing. Perhaps not coincidentally, the loaf was graced with one of the most attractive crusts I'd ever made, with fissures and exposed crumb making (oxymoron alert!) random patterns across the top.

Why did this particular loaf sing when hundreds before did not? Who knows? Was the bread (or the crust) any better? It was was a gift. I'll probably never know...