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My limited experience working in bakeries taught me you need to develop a wholesale business in addition to retail. This is a huge challenge because your baking on a much bigger scale than your bakery was setup to do. I've worked in and seen this twice and one of the bakeries was successful and one failed but that was because of the owner. The failed bakery was purchased as a second location for another bakery and is thriving because the owner is smarter and trusts her employees.
The couple of bakeries I've seen here (I'm in the process of going to see if I can work in yet another one) that make sourdough don't begin from starters. They mix the dough and let if rest in the refrigerator but the rest is usually only about 12 hours, if that. It won't really develop any fermentation in that time in a refrigerator. It doesn't even have a soft tang but the flavor is deeper than a standard one hour rise on the counter. The owner and his head bread baker insisted that there is not the market for real sourdough here but at least part of it is that they didn't want to spend three days making a loaf of bread. And I don't know how the health department would react to them leaving out huge amounts of dough for 24 hours or more but that appears to be what Jim Lahey does in NY (I've never tasted his bread but a trip to one of his shops is on my list). I've never made my own starter because my wife would be disturbed by the science project growing on the counter. But, she is behind the spent grain idea so perhaps it's time to approach this topic again.
I make pizza dough every other week. I used to let it rise in the refrigerator but I needed at least two days in there. Now I let it rise on the counter but I still need at least 18 before it starts to have the right taste and 24 is better. If I let it go longer than 24 it goes in the fridge.
First - thanks for the assistance of spent grain. It gives me a place to start. And I think my friend will indulge me His brew master is very interested in bread. I spent an hour one evening talking with him about sourdough and why the local variations are not very sour. He likes things VERY fermented. Go figure.
As for the bread not tasting like beer, I tried using a local amber ale to make pizza dough and I could never detect any difference so I stopped using it because water is way less expensive.
Restaurants are extremely hard. I was talking with a friend (chef and COO of a four restaurant group here) about the challenges. It is only becoming harder here as we require employers to increase compensation and benefits. For someone like my friend there is no way they can drop their number of employees down without closing some stores. And there is some price elasticity but not much. So their margins shrink. And sure, these guys are doing well but they are not rich. Restaurants are the number one business to close each year. That is partly because they are also the number one business to open. But everyone thinks it's as simple as being a good cook but there is so much more to it than that. Here is a Freakonomics podcast about Kenji Alt Lopes opening a beer hall in San Mateo and all the challenges he faces.
I'll let you all know how my beer bread turns out as I progress.
The Bicycling article is good. The WSJ article (behind a paywall) pointed out that the data was based on correlation not causation and as my mom used to say about things like this, publish or perish.
Len, your point was raised when the very first study saying eggs were bad was published years ago. There stories on the news showing people frying eggs in bacon fat talking about how bad the eggs were. 😉
Sounds great BA.
We have can lights in the kitchen (in fact throughout the house). I switched to LEDs when we were thinking about putting in a backup generator because we have nine cans in the kitchen alone and swapping out 65 watt bulbs for 9 watt LEDs makes a difference when spec'ing a generator.
There are all-in-one LED cans that are the light and fixture. They look cleaner than the standard can and are pretty straight forward to install. I did it and I am not handy. I've done 36 in the house so far and some day I will get to the rest.
Spatchcocking turkey is HARD! I've only done it once with a 15 lb bird. Not sure I would want to try it again!
I couldn't sleep last night and watching Alton Brown he not only removed the backbone but also removed the breastbone when he spatchcocked a chicken.
When they taught me to do it we just removed the backbone. That's also how Martha Stewart does it on here website.
How do the folks here do it?
Really good idea! Only catch for us is there is no way my wife would allow a chicken to sit uncovered in our refrigerator, especially raw. I have watched her cook pounded-flat, boneless, skinless chicken breasts for over 45 minutes because she could still see some pink meat inside.
I've been meaning to try something I saw to quickly roast a chicken. Spatchcock it. Then heat the oven to 350. While heating the oven to 350 heat a skillet (cast iron works best) on the stove with cooking oil in the bottom.
Season the chicken the way you like it. and when the oven is ready, turn off the heat and place the chicken in the skillet then place the skillet in the oven until the internal temp reads 155 (or you can go to 165).
It supposed to start cooking the chicken from the bottom before it ever goes in the oven and the spatchcocked chicken makes the whole thing cook faster. When I try it I'll report back the results.
This is why I love this site! We start talking about a baking show and evolve into televisions and streaming.
BA, the next set you by will likely be a smart television and will allow you to connect to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and whatever else is out there without an additional device like an Amazon Fire.
Another observation from the two seasons of Netflix GBBS is how many people have accidents or near accidents because they are using cookie sheets and "bakes" slide off. I haven't used a cookie sheet in years, even for cookies. The last time I used a cookie sheet was as a peel for pizza.
How about you all? Do you still use cookie sheets?
BA, the KAF recipe I used calls for light and dark corn syrup and white sugar. Since I didn't have dark I subbed in some turbinado sugar for some of the white sugar. I also subbed in some turbinado sugar for brown sugar on my pumpkin pie when I ran out of brown. It gives some of the molasses taste but it's not an exact substitute as it's much drier than brown sugar. And, like you, I tend to stick with brand names I know. Although I've moved away from Land O'Lakes. It's just too expensive. And I tried Trader Joe's which is half the price of LOL on sale and I cannot tell the difference and, even more importantly, the people I bake for cannot tell the difference.
I did follow your guidance on par-cooking the pumpkin filling before putting it into the oven and that worked well. I might have even been able to cook it a bit longer. Thanks!
Mike - how did your turkey go?
Hi Chocomouse. I used Karo and I checked the back and the recipe does call for two TBSPs.
I used a KAF recipe and it calls for a whopping EIGHT TBSPs! I didn't really think about it until I saw the Karo recipe. It has more sugar than KAF. Not sure which is supposed to be worse for you now.
Good thing I only make it once a year. 🙂
Here is the Karo recipe:
1 cup Karo corn syrup
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 TBSP butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) pecans
I unbaked deep dish pie crustThanks Mike.
There is no Wegmans near us. I can look when I head up to Boston in a couple weeks or, ask our friends who live in Syracuse to check. Two stores here both said they had them online and neither had them online or in-store.
Like you found, Mike, it is almost all Oreos and Chips Ahoy. Various Newtons were in third place. I read somewhere that Nabisco is trying to sell itself so they are trimming their lines.
I used Oreos minus the filling. My kids were disappointed I had not saved the filling for them. It was a reasonable substitute but I am not certain it was any easier than making my own. Here is a link to one of the KAF wafer cookie recipes.
Thanks BA. And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
I don't think it was the bread flour as it's the leavening that makes it rise. It's the gluten that stretches and holds its shape. But the gluten was lower than bread flour since half was pastry flour. I was trying to approximate the gluten in AP flour since I didn't have any.
And last year I used all pastry flour with the same results.
I have not tried the online Pie Academy but maybe I will. Or maybe I'll go visit my friend in Seattle and spend a day making pies with her.
Thanks again.
Thanks. Went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and it took me three people before I found someone who knew what a pie plate was! 🙂 All they had were Pyrex pie plates. I'll start earlier next year.
My pie crusts are blind baked. I followed the aluminum on bottom and top AND low (350) and slow. I chilled the crusted in the pans before baking for an hour. I used 50/50 pastry and bread flour (I don't have AP) with some powdered buttermilk thrown in. I used all butter and my liquid was heavy cream.
I did realize one thing. I can add less liquid if I just dampen the mixture, lightly mix it, then put it onto plastic wrap and wrap it up and "utz it together" as my mom used to say
I still had shrinkage. Oh well... I used one aluminum pie pan and one Pyrex. The aluminum had better results than the Pyrex.
I will try this again (not today) and I will sub out heavy cream for water or vodka (always wanted to try the vodka) and see if that helps. If I still have shrinkage I'll try subbing out some butter for some shortening or margarine.
What a great article! Ewald Notter and Bronwen Weber used to be fixtures on The Food Network. Good to see them still baking and thriving!
Thanks Mike
People are funny about turkey weights. When I was filling their orders last Thanksgiving people insisted on having specific weights and that they had ordered that weight. We would typically respond that we can only deliver what nature grows for us.
Maybe turkeys on farms are not supposed to 30 pounds but we have wild turkeys roaming the streets in our town and those are BIG birds! From my hunter friends who've eaten wild turkeys there is not a lot of fat on them either.
But one reason mentioned for smaller turkeys is to try to have them be a year-round option. But a six-plus pound bird is still pretty big for the average family.
Thanks for all the pie crust/blind baking advice. I'm going to try my Pyrex this year since we're not going any place and if I have time I may buy and try a metal pie tin.
Not sure if I'll find one of BA's round, drip-catchers. I'm going to make my pie dough today which should allow me to blind bake Wednesday.
Oh, and thanks for the tip about par-cooking the pumpkin pie filling before baking. Even with foil on my crust edge it always ends up overbaked before the filling is fully cooked!
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