[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. It was interesting. I let the sponge rise for 24 hours and then mixed in the rest of the flour and water. It needed more water than called for with an 8 hour rise so I know that.

To your point about moving things around, it did not have much of a first rise but after flattening it, stretching it, and shaping it the dough had a good second rise and a really good oven spring and gave me a nice, high loaf.

The only one in the family who likes rye is my oldest and he noticed a difference between the 8 and 24 hour versions. I intend to expand my test subjects with my next batches.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I guess I didn't phrase the question right. I understand not letting the yeast lose all its rise on the first rise so let me rephrase this.

I have two recipes - one prepares the dough and calls for a first rise that is 18-24 hours at room temp.

The second calls a for a sponge for with an a rise between 2 and 8 hours at room temp then making the dough from the sponge and more flour and water.

I like the sponge recipe better but any guesses as to what would happen if I just made the whole thing and gave it a long rise at room temp without letting it go so long it doesn't have a second rise?

Thanks

[aaronatthedoublef]

I might try an egg wash next time. I want to get the cornstarch right too so there is a choice. Since I'm doing this for people who want to put it into production cornstarch is less expensive but egg was is less labor intensive.

I think I'll make a double batch and then can try different things on different loaves.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I had my second attempt at rye bread. This time, instead of following the recipe I let the sponge sit for about 24 hours instead of eight. The bread had a lot more flavor but absorbed a lot less flour when I was building the dough from the sponge. Perhaps if I need to add extra water to the sponge and/or when mixing the dough with the sponge. I'll try that next.

Also, I followed Mike's advice about stretching the dough before shaping it and wound up with a higher, tighter loaf. I did not use the corn starch glaze this time and the bread looked the worse for it. I also need a tighter seam as it did not fully close.

But it was a step forward since the taste was better and I learned more about making a good looking. good tasting loaf.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Somehow I turned DCS into DCR. Sorry about that. You can start here.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I found this range. It does not appear to have a sealed burner but it would fit ANYWHERE!

I had a Fisher Paykel washer and dryer years ago. The dryer had an Easter egg and when buttons were pressed in a certain sequence it would play the theme from Star Wars.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

There is an Ikea in Schaumburg which is probably a couple of hours from South Bend if I remember my Chicagoland geography. I swear there used to be on in Chicago in the Bakers Square area but that may be faulty memory.

Blue Star does not have sealed burners. It has burners that drip through into drip pans which actually fit nicely in a home dishwasher. Most of the Garland pieces did not. A couple of chef friends offered to lend me their commercial dishwashers but once in the spring when the weather warmed up and once in the fall before the first freeze I would take the parts outside and hose them down.

I didn't mean to imply that gas ovens had no hotspots - they definitely do. But gas ovens also have some natural convection that help mitigate them. But even if your brand new oven, electric, gas, wood burning, coal (really popular here for pizza) or whatever starts out with no hot spots it will develop them over time as a result of heating and cooling and expanding and contracting. That's why it is good to be able to have your oven regularly serviced. Which, BTW, highlights another problem with commercial ranges in a home. The people who fix home appliances do not know about commercial appliances and the people who fix commercial appliances are not bonded to work in your house.

Convection ovens have caused me challenges with bread in that the outside browns way too fast and long before the inside is even close to finished. The ovens I use at our temple are convection (I have not figured out how to turn off the fans) and it took me a couple of test runs to get things right. It does not appear to do anything either good our bad for my pizzas in my oven. It just makes noise with the fan running.

I've never tried DCR but on Mike's recommendation I might. But I hope to never have to buy another one of these ever again.

Whirlpool owns: Maytag, Amana, and KitchenAid. The quality of all these brands has dropped since they were acquired but my parents owned their house for over 50 years and had a total of two refrigerators, both the same model Amana with the refrigerator on top and the freezer on the bottom. We sold the house with the second still running just fine.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I do not understand the attraction of electric ovens but that is probably because the ones I've used were invariably very inaccurate with loads of hot and cool spots. They required steep learning curves. I've always loved gas and to this day the best oven I ever owned was a very inexpensive Amana. My pastry chef friend roomed with me and used it to make wedding cakes between jobs but because it was a regular, home oven it limited the size of cakes she could make. She, too, loved it.

We have a 60 inch range because that is what the builder put in and as expensive as a replacement range is, putting in cabinets to take up the extra space a smaller range would leave makes the big range look cheap in comparison. Still it took several years of savings to replace the range we had in their.

We had a Garland commercial range (the first page of the instruction manual said in huge letters that this was not to be installed in a domestic setting). It was great in that it was dead-simple. I would pop off the oven knob and crank the thermostat when making pizza and, viola, we had a pizza oven that cooked pizzas at 700 degrees. It could have gone higher, probably, Garlands are not insulated so I was nervous about setting the wall behind or the cabinets on either side of it on fire.

It also had a 24 inch stainless steel griddle which was fantastic when I figure out how to use it which sat on top of a restaurant broiler which was also phenomenal.

That said, it had no windows in the oven doors or lights in the ovens. It was not insulated so when my pizzas were cooking at 700 the doors were at 700 which is very unpleasant in the summer and very dangerous all year round, especially with two, wild toddler boys. Whenever we turned it on we would yell "oven's hot" as a warning and the boys knew to stay on the other side of the island. But it was terrifying having friends over. I cut out some pipe insulation to fit the door and then duck-taped magnets onto the back side and this would go on the oven door and be cool to the touch. But it was ugly so my wife nixed it. It was the birth of our even wilder baby girl that prompted us to purchase a new range. I am too old at this point to guard the oven while baking.

We were limited to three or four different ranges because of the big space. We chose a Blue Star based on recommendations from some chef friends and on internet reviews. I would never buy a Viking as they are overpriced and not reliable (they were good 20 years ago). Wolf is okay but not as good as they used to be before merging with Sub-Zero (not sure who acquired whom) and they are also very pricey. Blue Star was the best value for the money.

It cooks and bakes nicely, has windows in the oven doors, lights that go on with a big rocker switch, and even insulation in the door. I would never buy an oven with controls at the back because who wants to reach across cooking food to mess with the controls. The downside is the place we bought it does not service it and it is hard to find service. It needs to be adjusted and I haven't bothered to setup an appointment and I cannot find instructions for DIY online.

It came with an add-on cast iron grill/griddle that replaces two burners. I use it but if I'd had to buy separately I would have passed. It's stupid expensive as an add-on and I could buy several dozen nice, burner top griddle/grills from Bed, Bath, and Beyond for what Blue Star charges. But I use the griddle several times a day. I used to use a flat top so I like it. My wife is not as enamored of it and does not use it. But when Dad's Diner is making pancakes, waffles, and eggs, it comes in very handy.

[aaronatthedoublef]

BA... I've noticed that if I use the volume measurements I invariably use a lot more flour than if I use the weights on KAF recipes. I used the weights for their no-knead challah and the dough was too soft to maintain its shape. Of course they put theirs in a pan to make a round loaf and I was making braids. I made the recipe again and added an extra 3.5 ounces of flour.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I'll try the tahini cookies. We usually have some in the fridge as we make humus on a regular basis. Never would have thought about it for chocolate chip cookies.

I'm with Mike. Halva is definitely an acquired taste that I never acquired.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Not sure if this is baking or cooking or both but yesterday was my son's birthday. Somehow he decided he wanted an egg sandwich using waffles as the bread. So that is what I made him. His brother and sister had pancakes with strawberries and blueberries. I've found I need to lower the heat and cook the pancakes a bit longer when adding fruit to them. Just putting them on top would probably be easier.

I need to make another rye bread this week and maybe English muffins.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Never trusted Martha. Her recipes never seem to work for me. Plus if you ever saw her Food Network Halloween special the kids were absolutely terrified of her even though she was trying to give them treats. Makes me wonder what they saw off-camera.

I love Ina Garten but I've never tried any of her recipes. Going back to my cooking class in Italy I would probably sweat the eggplant. But you can make a tasty tomato sauce in 10 minutes. Olive oil, salt, garlic (or no garlic), onions, perhaps some carrots, and crushed tomatoes. Do it in a skillet and it will thicken in about 10 minutes. You can add some sugar to tame the acid or you can add about a teaspoon of baking soda. But I've found I need to up the salt a bit when adding baking soda or it tastes flat.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Okay... re-read the instructions. Let's see if this works.

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[aaronatthedoublef]

BA, I could not find hearth pans on the KAF site but there were some large bread pans - 10x5. So I'll look at the local kitchen shop, then the restaurant supply store.

Mike, I should know more about this. I worked on Photoshop and Illustrator but that was also back in the late 80s. I just have not had much call for it since then. I have a Linux system so maybe I'll try what you suggest. My kids should know some software I can use.

[aaronatthedoublef]

It's a great story. I spent Friday nights for six months going to the local artisan bakery and making bread. There were four of us each shift and we would make about 600 loaves of bread. I would stagger home at 4 am and try to get to sleep. Then I would wake up at 7 am and have to take kids to soccer and/or baseball. It was not easy.

Here the state has said that, in theory, home kitchens are okay and then kicked it to the town. But the waiting lists to get into a farmer's market is usually huge. I had a chef friend offer to try and help me skip the queue once, but like you all, the task of doing this every weekend is daunting, at least so long as I have a job and kids.

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