The key to a daily bread practice isn’t about grand bakes on the weekends but about finding simple, repeatable practices you can undertake on a typical Tuesday. I’ve seen a lot of new bakers dive headfirst into bread recipes that are too advanced and then get discouraged when they don’t turn out as hoped. Instead, pick a single simple dough recipe and come back to it every day, changing only one thing at a time. This will give you a baseline from which to judge the effects of, say, a little more water or a little longer mixing time.
One of the most common errors new bakers make is changing three or four variables after a loaf doesn’t turn out as hoped, such as switching to a new brand of flour, increasing or decreasing the amount of yeast, and altering the kneading technique, for example. It’s impossible to tell which change affected the loaf for the better (or worse). When something goes wrong, change only one thing. If you find your loaf is too dense, for example, try increasing the first rise by 30 minutes but keep everything else the same. This process can be slow going, but it helps you avoid a series of lucky accidents.
A daily practice can take as little as 15 minutes a day of actual work. Mix a portion of simple dough in the evening, knead it briefly, and then park it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, shape it and bake it, or just observe how a refrigerated dough behaves compared to one that has rested at room temperature. This will teach you how to control fermentation without needing a three-hour block of time. Even on a busy day when you don’t have time for much, handle the dough once or twice to keep a continuity going so you don’t lose the skills you gained during your last bake.
Your handling will also become more efficient with practice. The first few times you work a dough, you may find yourself handling it too much, constantly prodding it, or flouring your hands and counter unnecessarily because you aren’t comfortable with the sticky dough. As you get more comfortable with the dough and see how it responds to your touch, you will begin to move more efficiently and gently, and you will learn when to handle the dough and when to leave it alone. Not only will you get less tired, but your bread will turn out better.
If you keep any sort of record at all of what you do, even just a line or two in a notebook, you will be surprised at how much faster you will learn. Note the texture of your dough, where you placed it to rise, and anything unusual that happened in the oven. After a while, you will start to see patterns and trends emerge; you may find that a cooler room temperature makes the dough rise better, or a certain hydration level will give you a crumb you like, or a particular way of folding the dough will help it hold its shape in the oven. While it can be hard to keep all of this in your head, and it’s easy to forget details from day to day, having a written record will help you establish a new default as you build experience and confidence.