[aaronatthedoublef]

Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart is well worth the price even if you never use a recipe from the book. Chapter 1, "What Is It About Bread" is a great read. Mr. Reinhart's story about winning James Beard National Bread Competition and then going to bake makes this book worthwhile. I've been given it as a gift several times. Perhaps next time I will exchange it for one of his whole grain books.

Another interesting baker who has changed the way we bake is Jim Lahey. He is a commercial baker in New York and is at the front of the no-knead movement. He has some great stories of studying sculpture and going to Italy to pursue that and coming back a bread baker in his book My Bread.

Blanche, sorry if I missed it but what sort of equipment are you using? As Mike notes he outgrew his bread machine to a KitchenAid. I used to use my KitchenAid for bread but I tend to make batches that are at least four pounds of dough and my 5 quart bowl is just too small to handle it. Also I make bread a couple of times a year with some middle schoolers and I received some comments from parents whose kids wanted to buy expensive stand mixers. So I started making the dough by hand and found it easier than using my too small mixer.

Now based on comments here I may try to go back to my mixer to increase the rise of my breads. Of course that means I will need to reduce the recipe sizes.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Welcome on board. This is a great group with a wealth of knowledge.

I've only made small forays into whole grain breads. I do add whole wheat flour to pizza dough and pancakes. I also add flax meal and more recently I've started adding chickpea flour. I'm going for more fiber and more protein for my kids.

I have a list of things to try with rye bread. It has a long rise, as Mike suggests, and while my loaves are far from being door stops they are not as light as what I can buy from local bakeries. Still I have a list of things to try and I will let you know my results.

I may also start working on whole wheat because I really need to have both those breads in my repertoire. I've tried a KAF whole wheat recipe that included orange juice to tame some of the WW bitterness and that part did work well.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks all. I have not made bread with dairy in ages. The last time was one of Peter Reinhart's brioche. I've mostly been making challah and Jewish rye bread neither of which have diary, although the new trend in challah (at least here on the East Coast) is to make it with butter.

Maybe I'll cut down my recipe to fit it in the mixer and see if that helps. I also found an article on building a proofing box so I may try that too, just for kicks.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made a non-dairy version of my mom's molasses ginger cookies to take to friends with allergies.

My four year old helped! The concept of keeping one hand dry/clean was lost on her but I think she had fun. And when we present them to our friends she will be able to proudly say she helped make them and the smile will be amazing. We also did a little bit of math practice...

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks for everyone's kind words and advice. I am not certain my bread skills are so advanced but kneading by hand has given me a better feel for my dough. I think I've said this but I started hand mixing because I was teaching kids to make challah and they would all go home and ask their parents for a stand mixer. Then I realized I could whip up a bigger, single batch by hand than in my KitchenAid. I went from nine batches of dough down to five.

I wish I had room for new equipment. At some point we'll seal the basement floor and then I might be able to put some things down there. But I already have things I do not use because I would have to take them out, use them, clean them, and then put them away and I am too lazy. I grate 1.5 pounds of mozzarella by hand because 1) I do not want to by the pre-shredded mozzarella and 2) I am too lazy to use the perfectly fine Cuisinart we own.

Anyway, I will try building a proofing box and will try vital wheat gluten as well and maybe I'll ask some of the bakers around town. I'll let you know my results.

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas and that you have fantastic New Years!

Thanks again

[aaronatthedoublef]

The other day one of my sons asked us "After saffron what is the most expensive spice?" I answered "if it's considered a spice then vanilla".

Which, of course, was the answer... I've never thought of vanilla as a spice.

BTW, I cannot find the original item where Baker Aunt talked about vanilla in shortbread but I have vanilla in mine. I checked Jamie Oliver's "Cooking with Jamie" which is the closest thing I have to a Scottish cookbook (I bought it at a book store in Scotland) and Mr. Oliver DOES NOT USE vanilla. So maybe I will take it out of mine.

He does use semolina or corn flour.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. If I ever do get to see a large scale bread factory I will. Hartford Baking Company (HBC) where I made bread did not have a proofing box at the time, probably because there wasn't room. It was a small location that shared space with the retail operations and we spent at least an hour and a half of each shift moving the retail gear out and the bread gear in and then setting the retail back up at the end. They did have a magnificent steam injection oven and an incredible mixer that looked like a huge Bosch style. It would make something like 75 lbs. of bread dough in five minutes. We proofed on sheet pans on bakery racks under cloth covers because that was what space would allow.

I'll try some of the suggestions from BA and ChocoMouse. I even have some vital wheat gluten I've never used and I have a foil baking pan I can use to cover the dough while it's proofing and/or when I put it in the oven.

I hate my KitchenAid for bread. Mostly it's because KitchenAid promised it would work with recipes with 9 cups of flour and it will not handle a bread dough that has more than three cups. My rye bread is too much dough so I mix it by hand. Also, there is something soothing about doing it by hand. But I usually make 3-4 lbs. of dough and that overflows the mixer.

I do not have any more room for appliances which is why I do not have a bread machine or a slow cooker (I would love an InstaPot). A dough machine might actually work better.

So maybe I'll just have to scale back my recipe. Or I have a friend with a 30 quart Hobart who would let me use it. He's offered it to me when his shop buys a new mixer.

Bennisons is fantastic. And seeing the actual Coupe de Monde is extraordinary. Buying doughnuts from the fellow who won it is unbelievable! There is a neat, new bread bakery in Evanston called Hewn. It is walking distance from my brother's house and is on my list the next time I am there.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks BA, Mike, and Chocomouse. I've worked in a few smallish bakeries and one of them I even worked the overnight shift shaping bread. I would try to arrive early to see the dough makers actually make the dough. But this was far from a factory. We had two people making dough, four people and a team lead making loaves, and then the team lead would go between shaping and baking. In an eight hour shift we would make about 600 loaves of bread which always left me amazed and proud and exhausted.

I don't want wonder but I do want something a little lighter. I have a long slow rise. First I make a starter that sits over night. Then I make the dough and let it rise in the refrigerator for 48 hours. That may be too long and it may over proof but it develops great flavor. I cannot buy anything around here that tastes like it.

Maybe I'll talk to my old boss at the bakery. Of course he now has a much bigger operation with central baking and two retail locations as well as many wholesale customers. Interestingly he parted ways with Whole Foods which has been good for his product. It suffered trying to meet their volume demands and that was just making bread for three markets around here. They wanted him to go New England wide.

Thanks again

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sorry... One more link of Clandestine Cake Club Christmas cakes from their members...

[aaronatthedoublef]

Happy birthday to Mrs. Nolan!

I made doughnuts for Chanukah. I realized how long it has been since I made them when my four year old said I had never made them before. I made the KAF chocolate baked doughnuts. I usually use half butter and half oil but I made them all butter this year although oil would have been more appropriate for Hanukah. KAF has modified the recipe for half butter and half oil. The copy I downloaded years ago is one or the other.

KAF also has an interesting jelly doughnut recipe. It looks like pate choux that you fry instead of bake. And fried jelly doughnuts are the real Hanukah tradition, not baked chocolate ones. But no one complained.

I'll make my mom's molasses cookies and some meringues this week.

[aaronatthedoublef]

This is very sad. There are many people involved in the production of something like this and to shut it down because of the bad actions of one host is terrible.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting. We get big (50lb+) cuts. No sides of beef that I've seen but we also do not have the room to store them or break them down. But we will get an entire rib cage. They offered to teach me how to use the band saw and break things down but I have to admit to being a little intimidated. It's also incredibly loud and no one wears ear protection. If you were using the same thing in a wood shop you'd have your ears covered.

We have shanks every week if not every day. Usually beef and lamb and sometimes pork. We always have bones in the freezer from the meet we cut. Yesterday we even had pork jowl which I have never seen except on a living pig.

We're far from perfect but the thing I like about the place I work and the store where I shopped before I started working is that there are people who are passionate about what they do. It's a mission for them and they take pride in what they do. There are not a lot of grocery stores around here like that.

And there are some folks in grocery who know nothing about what is in the baking aisle and tell customers that there is no real difference between cake flour and AP flour but I am working on that. 😉

[aaronatthedoublef]

I cannot speak to all Whole Foods but as much as we try to have them consistent they vary from store to store. Even in my town we have two WFMs within a mile of each other and they still have differences because of size of store and staff. I was listening to my butchers yesterday and they said the former manager used to rush the meat of the dry-aged case before it was ready. Our current boss insists it sit there at least 21 days which the butchers there say is the minimum amount of time necessary to properly dry age beef (I haven't done any research into it). So one person can make a big difference.

It's surprising that a town in Nebraska would not have fantastic meat counters.

Len, my grandfather worked for years in the Stockyards hauling those sides of beef around. It was not easy on him and he died young.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I watched the two hours and the very end of the last episode annoyed me. I've become disenchanted with the "Survivor" method of someone leaving at the end of each show. A NASCAR type scoring system would be different and might be an improvement. At the end of the second hour Johnny was talking about the person who was sent home (I won't spoil it) and said that the person came onto the show to become a better baker but "never got his feet underneath him". The person was only on the show for two weeks. Of course he "never got his feet underneath him".

If it's about becoming a better baker then let everyone stay the entire show and compete against each other for the run of the series. There would be better character development and more story lines and it would be better for everyone.

Paul Hollywood has toned down his personality some now that he is not playing off Mary Berry. I do miss her.

And I love the football player host. He just loves to eat and does not worry about how much or how fattening things are. It's great to see someone just enjoy the food these folks make each week.

[aaronatthedoublef]

For some reason the link keeps taking me to "Reply to Swiss Chard".

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