[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA. Ash is pretty tough. I had an ash floor in my kitchen in Seattle and I miss it. Any floor can be wrecked and if you have slippers on and step on corn meal you won't feel it and you'll grind it into the floor. We have pine now (it's a long story).

Of course I know what Cream of Wheat is. I even know the radio jingle from the 30s thanks to my dad!

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks everyone!

I may go back to wood. We're looking at an outdoor pizza oven and if we have outdoor parties wood peels are great for presentation. I may buy one to try it.

I've never tried semolina for dusting but maybe I will. It's more expensive here (I know we're close Choco) so the few times I've used it I haven't used it for dusting. Also, for some reason, my family does not like it when I have used it. They have liked it other places.

I've never tried the grill. The people I know who use their grills here use gas grills so it won't have your flavor, Rottie, and they grill the bread then build the pizza. I have experimented with par-baking crusts to shorten times and to get a crisper crust. But things don't really meld together. I make five or six pizzas at a time (sometimes more) so I would need multiple stones to do this. Here in Connecticut coal-fired pizza is typical so I wonder how it compares to charcoal. The grill's big advantage is how hot it can get but I've just learned how to adjust the heat on my ovens past the factory settings so while it would only go to 450 before I now have it at 550. With our last ovens I had one at 800.

I started with cornmeal many years ago before I used parchment. It's good but it is very messy (or I am very messy or both ;-)). We have soft, wood floors and cornmeal actually gouges them. In high heat I've had the cornmeal catch on fire.

I've been thinking about rice flour too, Mike. The last two bakers I've worked with both use it for dusting. They say 1) it sticks less than bread flour because it lacks gluten and 2) it is less likely to catch fire than wheat flour. I don't know if either of these are true but two bakers running successful bakeries swear by it. I read an article that says I can make my own using a blender and rice so that would be nice as well.

Again, thanks for all your replies.

[aaronatthedoublef]

The farmers' market we went to in Thousand Oaks was HUGE. It took up large part of the mall parking lot. We bought flats of the most beautiful strawberries for $5. And the avacados were wonderful and $0.50 (but that may have been because Kate had a crush on the farmer).

[aaronatthedoublef]

When we lived in So Cal we quickly learned to shop the farmers' market for produce. Everything in the grocery stores was shipped to Texas, packed there and sent back to California. If it did not ripen off the plant it would never be ripe and if it did it was usually bruised.

Plus the farmers said they saved the best for the markets where they saw us face-to-face.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. Thanks BA.

Mike, I used a lasagna pan to make the sugar. We have several and they are all non-reactive. I just needed a bigger one or to use less sugar. I'm thinking I may make a large quantity of it to use in other things.

[aaronatthedoublef]

What are the blueberry sweet rolls like? We had a great aunt who used to bring us sweet rolls years ago. Here they have Danish which are similar but different.

Oh and we have 90s and rain this week. Lovely!

I made scones for my college boy who has not had them in a lonnnnng time. I'll make more bread this week. Violet had a birthday party featuring s'mores. I made a coconut cake into a sheet cake. I thought it would bake faster than in 9 inch rounds but it still took about 35 minutes. It was Stella Park's from Serious Eats and had coconut flour, coconut oil, and coconut milk but no actual, real coconut. Now what is a coconut cake without coconut? So I dumped in four ounces. It could have used eight. And the flavor doesn't really come out until the next day but it was a really good cake. I used my smallest round biscuit cutter and made little rounds to have in the s'mores bar.

I tried browning some sugar but I need a bigger pan or to do a smaller batch. Some of it was toasted and had a great caramel smell and taste. Definitely worth doing again.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Len. I saw them on Amazon too. I am just trying to ween myself off buying things from them. I'm not a big fan these days.

I've been making KAF potato rolls for buns and my family likes those. I've been hand-shaping them as well. You cannot get the two tone effect of a hamburger bun without a pan (or I haven't figured that out). I have never tried hotdog buns, freehand or otherwise. Looking at them they might be similar to mini baguettes and baguettes are surprisingly hard to shape.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the link Mike. I'll watch and maybe buy the book as well. I learn better from books and following steps.

My family likes white cakes and I would MUCH rather make a yellow cake. I haven't tried a mix (maybe I should) but taking out the yolks makes the recipe more challenging. I have had more than one white cake where I overbeat the whites and dried them and the cake out. But the crumb is very pretty and delicate. I do more hand mixing with white cakes.

Those cake pans are really cool. Where do you all buy your bakeware?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the link Mike. I'll watch and maybe buy the book as well. I learn better from books and following steps.

My family likes white cakes and I would MUCH rather make a yellow cake. I haven't tried a mix (maybe I should) but taking out the yolks makes the recipe more challenging. I have had more than one white cake where I overbeat the whites and dried them and the cake out. But the crumb is very pretty and delicate. I do more hand mixing with white cakes.

Those cake pans are really cool. Where do you all buy your bakeware?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the encouragement to try lamination Mike. And it's less daunting now that butter is less than $7/lb.

The lava bread is not salty. It is sweet. Even Violet found it very sweet.

But the yeasted breads they served in restaurants and cafes was very salty to my taste. I have no recipes for those.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike - Your kouign amann looks great. I've always been terrified of laminated yeast doughs.

I was told by a Frenchman some years back it was to use up leftover croissant dough. Don't know if it's true but even if that's where it came from kouign amann has morphed into its own thing. How many dishes started out as poor food and ways to stretch or not waste things only to now become high end dishes.

[aaronatthedoublef]

We were in Iceland last week for a long anticipated family vacation. We'd been planning this since 2018 and were going to go in Dec. of 2019. We decided to wait until Summer of 2020 when it would be warmer and have longer days.

It was wonderful and only a little warmer - it hit a high of 50 a couple of days. But there was no snow and almost no night.

I'm attaching a couple of photos of a Lava Bread "baking" session. We didn't bake it or even mix the ingredients. They seal up the mix in a pot and bury it in a geothermal hotspot for 24 hours then take it out, cool it in the glacial runoff lake nearby, and unseal it. We watched as one loaf was uncovered and opened and as another was buried.

The leavener is baking powder so it is more Rye quick bread. But it also has TWO CUPS of SUGAR. So we decided it is more cake than bread. It is springy and light and, as you might guess, very sweet. It was good with butter or smoked trout from the lake.

The yeasted breads are noticeably salty. It's as if the Icelanders took all the salt the Tuscans and Umbrians don't use and put it in their bread.

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[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for the link Mike. I know the Original Pancake house from my brothers. There was also one in suburban Seattle.

I've had Dutch Babies here in New England. There is a place - Bickford's Pancake House - here in New England that is known for them. I think Bickford's is mostly in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

My mom used to make German pancakes which, I think, are similar and probably easier than regular pancakes if you're feeding a crowd. She would make a couple in pie tins in the oven instead of standing in front of a stove.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Challah really is a fine balance. I tend to make a wetter dough because I have a better crumb that way and a softer interior. It's something my mom figured out and I picked up from her long before I knew about "hydration". And being baked just enough, not too much or too little because it shouldn't be dry and it definitely shouldn't be doughy. I've had that and it is very unpleasant.

I like loaves to be pumper in the middle but I'm coming to realize that is an ascetic too. Some people like them straight without any taper at the end.

And crust color is a topic that can go on for pages and pages and everyone has an opinion.

And, what I did not realize before Mike sent the link to the page with all the different egg washes, was how many egg washes there are and what they all do. I've lost the link but I have the page printed out.

The original recipe I started used an egg and an egg white. I just used an egg because I didn't want to waste an egg or worry about saving and then reusing a yolk. Then I added some water to loosen it.

The dark one came out dark because my oven heats from the back not the bottom and it was closest to the back.

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

People are always dinged in baking challenges for not toasting their nuts these days. The one or two dishes I make with nuts call for toasting but in at least one of them that is to help remove the skins as much as for flavor.

Thanks for all your kind words about my pictures. I did not think they looked great which is part of the reason I started posting them. I see so many single, perfect things on Instagram and I wanted to show that not everything has to be camera-ready to be good and to feed people. I'm more impressed by a dozen loaves with basic scoring than one loaf with lots of intricate, fancy designs cut into it (although those are cool).

Oh, and Len, the dark loaf was gone in under 12 hours and my wife and I only had one piece. With Sam home from college, we're back to two teenage boys who boy eat tons of bread.

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