Prolific home bakers all face the same problem:  eating , freezing, or giving away all that bread before it goes south.  Sure, we could just bake less bread overall, or just a single loaf at a time.  Except it’s just as much trouble, not to mention oven heat, to bake one loaf as it is to bake two (or three or four….)  And when you’re refining a particular recipe or technique, it can take several tries to nail down details.  So I frequently find myself carving up loaves to fit into freezer bags, or foisting off buns on unsuspecting passers-by.

My favorite bakers at King Arthur Flour devised this simple, yet ingenious idea:  the divided loaf, which KA calls “sharing bread”.  Rather than bake a single, monolithic loaf, the baker shapes the dough into two or three balls, placed side by side in a loaf pan, which rise together for an hour or so.  As you can see, the dough bakes into an easily divided slicing loaf–perfect for separating into giveaway portions, for freezer storage, or for bake sales.  Now why didn’t I think of that?

Today, October 16th, is World Bread Day.  Eat, bake, or otherwise enjoy some of mankind’s most symbolic food.