The One Recipe Ree Drummond Can't Completely Perfect
Ree Drummond has captivated readers with an award-winning blog, The Pioneer Woman, a quarterly magazine, and seven cookbooks. She also hosts the wildly popular Food Network series "The Pioneer Woman." But more than her public persona, the celebrity chef has parented four children and a foster child (per People) and if you're among the millions of people who are fans of the show, you know Drummond is all about family and food. Or is it food and family?
Scroll through Ree Drummond's "The Pioneer Woman'' website and you'll find literally tons of recipes. Quiches and breakfast casseroles? Check. Thirty-minute meals to make supper a snap? Check. Jalapeno poppers, pigs-in-a-blanket, bacon-stuffed sausage rolls, and other life-of-the-party snacks? Check. Buckeyes, white hot chocolate, handmade peanut butter cups, and husband Ladd's favorite chocolate pie? Oh, yeah. Drummond is all about desserts, especially desserts that aren't terribly difficult.
One thing you don't see on Drummond's website is homemade artisan bread. Sure, there are yeasty cinnamon rolls on there, along with sticky-sweet Monkey Bread, sour cream coffee cake, holiday fruitcake, and muffins. The chef would be the first to tell you that artisan breads, like boules and baguettes, aren't in her wheelhouse (per Delish).
Artisan breads might be Drummond's least favorite food to make
Simple breads, like cornbread which doesn't contain yeast, seem to come naturally to Drummond, Oklahoma's most famous ranch wife, mother, and cook. A quick Internet search turns up recipes for jalapeno cornbread, cornbread with creamed corn, chile, and cheddar cornbread muffins, and of course The Pioneer Woman's tender-on-the-inside, crusty-on-the-outside skillet cornbread, which her mother made when she was young.
However, the chef does avoid handmade, artisan bread, and apparently not because she wants to keep carbs at bay. She finds these kinds of bread (think baguettes and sourdough) to be a thorn in her side, a culinary skill she hasn't yet conquered. This might seem surprising, considering the veteran Food Network host makes getting meals on the table look easy as pie.
But the fermentation, the rising, the kneading, the proofing — baking artisan bread can be a labor-intensive, time-consuming task. "Bread is the only thing separating me from utter peace and serenity,” Drummond confessed to Delish. "I'm pretty good at quick cakes and quick breads, but yeast-risen, artisan bread? So far, in my life, it hasn't happened for me."
The Pioneer Woman won't be hosting a show on baking bread
Ree Drummond is far from the first person to take a crack at making artisan bread — the kind that's crusty on the outside, with airy holes and a perfect crumb on the inside — and end up feeling let down. The "staff of life” is a staple, but it isn't necessarily easy. Many bakers find support and seek advice on forums like the r/Breadit subReddit on Reddit, a community of (currently) 823,000 members dedicated to the practice-makes-perfect, labor of love that is scratch-made bread. It's a place where bread bakers can "challah” out for guidance on rising, shaping, scoring, and yeast activity, and show off their finished products or lament what went wrong. And many bakers have upped their game with the no-knead method "that democratized bread-baking” and more than anything takes time and patience (per The New York Times).
The Pioneer Woman might be out of patience with bread, though. In a wide-ranging interview with influencer, fashion blogger, and podcast host Amanda Lauren, Drummond was asked if there's anything she can't do. Without missing a beat, she replied "bread," adding that her skills are "embarrassingly bad” and not worthy of sharing with an audience (per Bougie Adjacent podcast). "I won't be the host of any artisan bread instructional shows, now or in the future," Drummond noted.