[Mike Nolan]

I've baked loaves up to about 18 ounces of dough in my Dutch Oven, it usually takes around 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees, depending on how brown you like them. Interestingly enough, according to several BBGA bakers, loaves that are a light to golden brown outsell the darker ones.

I've burned myself on the oven racks more than on any pots and pans.

[Mike Nolan]

That's a lot of trees, but you've got a pretty good sized piece of land as I recall.

[Mike Nolan]

The 8 strand one seemed easier for me to do than the 5 strand one, which sounds strange.

After he gets set up in Israel, I think he's planning on doing a class with a 10 strand braid. Of the ones we made yesterday, I am probably most likely to make the 8 strand, though I do want to practice the rose one again. (I think I left out a step on the batch that I made later in the day, I need to watch the video of the class again.)

The 11 strand braid was huge, 1100 grams of dough. It'd be good for a large gathering, though.

His Challah recipe is one that doesn't have egg in the dough, though it does have sugar. He says doughs without egg keep the bread softer longer. We'll see.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's the 11 strand braid. All of these came out a bit dark, because it used an egg yolk wash, this one might be overbaked by a minute or two

Here's the 8 strand braid. I gave this one to our neighbor, as I don't have space in the freezer for all of them.

Here's the 5 strand braid, which came out a bit wobbly. You turn it on its side after the braiding, and are supposed to pull it open, but I couldn't figure out where.

Here's the rose, this is made with a 3 strand braid that is rolled up and cut in half to make two rolls.

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[Mike Nolan]

The braiding class went well, though I'm exhausted after spending a good 3 hours prepping for the class, over 2 hours on Zoom and then another hour and a half baking the things we made in class.

I'll get some pictures posted later, I thought the 11 strand and 8 strand braids came out well, the 5 strand one needs work.

We also made some Challah roses using a simple 3 strand braid, I think one came out good enough to post a picture of, I'll have to practice that one some more, too. But it looks like a good thing to do with any left over dough and if I can master them they'd make good rolls to set out at everyone's place at a dinner party or to help decorate a table.

[Mike Nolan]

I was talking to someone yesterday who is looking for a recipe for English Muffin Bread (she can't get it when she visits her family in California any more), so I'm bringing this thread up to the top again. She like it for French Toast. (With all the Challah I'll be making later today, I think there will be some French Toast on the menu here soon.)

There's a URL upthread to a site that has James Beard's recipe (from Beard on Bread, one of my favorite bread books), I note that it uses both yeast and baking soda, presumably the latter, added after the bulk rise, helps produces bigger holes more like an English Muffin.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't tried the parchment sling idea yet, it probably works better if you have full sheet pan sized parchment sheets (26 inches long, probably cut in half lengthwise.) I generally use my cookie spatula, which has a long enough handle I've never come close to burning myself as I lower the bread into the Dutch Oven. While moving the pan or lid around is a different story, though.

[Mike Nolan]

Jimmy recently started numbering his lessons, his latest is #60, on using a lame for scoring bread. Some of his scoring designs at the end are interesting and even amusing.

[Mike Nolan]

I baked some more of the cinnamon/maple fan tan rolls today, this time in individual silicone muffin cups. That worked pretty good. I think the butter paste ones were better today, maybe those were just ones that got more filling.

[Mike Nolan]

I read an interesting article recently on the guy who was involved with several pizzerias and restaurants in the north Chicago suburbs, including the Inferno in Evanston, Gulliver's in Rogers Park, the original Pequod's in Morton Grove and more recently Burt's Place in Morton Grove.

Burt Katz died in 2016.

BTW, Gullivers's is apparently for sale again, and there was an article in the Trib that the Malnati family is considering selling Lou Malnati's for somewhere around $ 700 million. (It has around 68 locations in several states.) I've been told by more recent Northwestern grads that Gullivers went downhill after it was sold (the second time, I think) in the late 70's, the new owner tried to use cheaper ingredients, it seems. Their pizza bread was so popular you'd order it as you were waiting in line for a table, just so it was ready when you were seated.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any information on when The Pizza Oven on Main Street in Evanston closed (I think it morphed into a Giordano's takeout location), I wish I could find someone who was involved with it to see if their recipes are available.

[Mike Nolan]

Ask three Italians about the right way to make pizza dough and you'll probably get 5 recipes, using everything from a soft pastry flour to a high-gluten flour. My former neighbor sold tons of high-gluten flour (15%) to local pizza chains.

Although we like the pizza crust I've been making lately, I think I'm going to do some experimenting with pizza dough crusts again, I'm still trying to come up with something close to the thin crust pizza we got in Evanston 45 years ago. :sigh:

[Mike Nolan]

We had Reubens, some of which used the new batch of sauerkraut, which is at the 'sampling' stage but not fully fermented yet, it has just a hint of a sour tang to it.

[Mike Nolan]

We tried some of the rolls this morning. Both of us had a slight preference for the ones that were made by spreading butter on the dough then brushing it with maple syrup and sprinkling on cinnamon sugar, so that's probably how I'll do this in the future.

The recipe I'm using is this one from the Food Network:
Fan Tan Rolls, substituting cinnamon sugar and maple syrup for the herbs. This is a pretty good basic dinner roll recipe, I may make it as plain dinner rolls some time, too.

I also took a 13x17 pan and turned it on its side then used it to stage the dough, so that the dough was sitting on the 2" side wall. That way it had a back to rest against and didn't slide around. Made things much easier.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, freezing the butter/sugar/cinnamon paste works, but I think it is probably easier and faster to lay out a strip of dough, spread some soft butter on it, brush the surface with maple syrup and then sprinkle on cinnamon sugar. Whether that gets as much sugar on each layer is probably something we'll have to determine by taste.

I made a tray of each and am freezing them overnight, since they seem to bake just fine straight from the freezer.

We'll see if I can tell much difference in them after baking.

[Mike Nolan]

Large holes are usually a shaping issue.

It sounds like the lock wasn't fully engaged. See if you can lock it in place without the bowl there.

I'm glad I'm not in the market for a new stand mixer right now, figuring out which KA models are the good ones is challenging, and the non-KA market is not much better, the commercial ones are usually the better ones, but are not cheap.

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