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There used to be a video out on Youtube of an older baker folding Kaiser rolls by hand. (Not the knot method.) I can't find it today but I'll keep looking.
In the mean time, here's another video that shows hand folding of Kaiser rolls:
Folding Kaiser RollsOne of the local cheesemakers who exhibits at our Sunday farmer's market has won numerous awards for her goat's milk cheeses, and deservedly so.
I'm making the 3rd of the 3 pans of lasagna I made a few weeks back.
I won't get it baked this week, but I'm planning to do Jeffrey Hamelman's raisin water bread, from the 2nd edition of his book. I have the first edition, but the recipe (Swiss Farmerhouse Bread) was printed in the BBGA newsletter a few years ago and is also available online here. (It takes 5-7 days just to make the raisin water, which is the only yeast used.)
I haven't decided if I'm going to follow his recipe completely or maybe leave out the walnuts and fold in some cinnamon.
It isn't on that list, but I just ordered Apollonia Poilâne's The Secrets of the World-Famous Bread Bakery. She is the third generation of the Poilâne family to run the bakery, having had to take over rather abruptly after her father's untimely death.
We ordered a miche (their signature bread) from the Poilâne bakery a few years ago, it arrived via Fedex from Paris in less than 48 hours and was excellent!
For some reason I thought you were in New Jersey.
There are a couple of trade magazines for pastry chefs, they're quite expensive but the photography is incredible.
I ran across this article on books recommended by professional bakers and pastry chefs
8 cookbooksI have 5 of the 8. (I have volumes 1 and 3 of the Tartine series but not volume 2.) One of the books listed is by Michel Suas, the founder of SFBI and a James Beard award winner for one of his bakery ventures. I bought his book when I was taking the pastry course at SFBI. I also have the CIA bakery textbook (by Gisslen), Cass sent it to me when he was downsizing apartments and I think of him every time I open it.
It's probably about a 5-6 hour drive to the Pittsburgh area for you, then.
My former next door neighbor runs the local Sysco office, I had him check his flour suppliers for first clear flour, his flour sales reps had never heard of it either! They did some digging and found that Gold Medal makes it available in the northeast and, oddly enough, on the west coast, but not anywhere in between. He could get it, but would have to order a pallet, which is twenty 50-pound bags.
Stover doesn't always have it in stock, it took me 3 trips to Pittsburgh to be there when they had it available. The brand was Boxer flours, made by Bay State Milling, which are based in Massachusetts but they have an office in Clifton NJ.
If you take a ball of dough that has rested after scaling, flatten it into a circle, tri-fold that together (top and bottom to the center) and then fold that again along the center and seal the top, you get a pretty good pre-shape for both batards and baguettes. I let that rest seam side down another 5-10 minutes, but that's optional.
I bought a 50 pound bag of clear flour from Stover & Company in the Pittsburgh area some months ago, it was around $18 for the bag, including tax. That's a bit more than AP, pastry or cake flour, but still a whole lot better than buying it in small bags.
But my older son current lives in the Pittsburgh area, so we usually drive there once or twice a year. Shipping would raise the cost substantially. There may be similar suppliers in your area, though.
BTW, Stover has the Callebaut ruby red callets, 2.5 kg is normally $60 but is currently on sale for $45. That I might be willing to pay shipping on, since we're not going to Pittsburgh for Christmas this year.
The formulas on the BBGA website are all in baker's math format, so they're easy to size up or down as needed. (A lot of them default to 5-10 kg of dough per batch, which is a moderate sized batch for a commercial kitchen.)
The think the secret to making batards and baguettes is to have the right technique for pre-shaping, so that when you start to roll it out it naturally rolls into the desired shape. I also find that if you divide the dough, pre-shape it and let it rest for 10-15 minutes, the final shaping is easier and a lot more consistent. (A rest after dividing and pre-shaping is one of the 12 steps in Jeffrey Hamelman's book.) I find for baguettes and batards I want an oval pre-shape and for boules I want a round one.
When I took my pastry class at SFBI, one lunch break they were making baguettes in the production kitchen, and they invited me to roll out a few. I had hoped to take the weekend baguette class at SFBI but it was cancelled due to low registrations, so I jumped at the chance to roll out some baguettes.
I was pleased that mine came out very much like theirs, enough so that they went onto the rack for baking. Back when I was testing recipes for Peter Reinhart, I made several baguettes every day for about three weeks, so I probably had that technique down pat. When I make Vienna bread, my goal is a loaf that has uniformly sized slices for most of its length, except at the ends.
If 1 cup = 4.25 ounces, it should also equal about 120 grams.
My claim to fame at Microsoft is that I found a bug in the most commonly used program in history: Microsoft Solitaire. This was back in the Windows 3.1 era. I reported to someone I knew at Microsoft, he took it to the weekly 'bug report' team meeting, and got a huge round of applause.
It had been sort-of fixed in the Windows 5 beta release, but not in the master code library.
I wonder if KAF has cut back or lost staff in the test kitchen. I haven't looked at their blog in several months.
I know PJ Hamel is still doing some work for KAF, but has moved to Cape Cod. I haven't heard from Susan Reid in several years, I don't know if she's still there. I know Jeffrey Hamelman retired a year or so ago, but he was in production, not editorial.
I thought it was interesting that the BBGA Kaiser roll formula uses less than 3 1/4 ounces of dough per roll. The Kaiser rolls I see in the stores and the ones they use in fast food restaurants tend to be HUGE, they've got to be 4 or 5 ounces after baking!
When I make hamburger buns, I tend to use 2 to 2 1/2 ounces per bun, as I prefer smaller burgers (not quite sliders but close).
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