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If you ever get a chance to tour an industrial bread operation (I've done it twice), jump at the chance. It is truly eye-opening to see loaves of bread as far as the eye can see. But what you really want to watch for is how they do quality control. (And they won't generally talk about that much, for good reason, also because it's not very interesting except to another baker.)
A commercial bakery of the size you've worked in (600 loaves/day is a fairly big shop) has access to a few ingredients (types and grades of flour, for example) that we don't really have access to at home, as well as a few pieces of equipment, like a 40 quart mixer, tightly controlled environment proofers and steam injection ovens, but I think a good home baker can do about 95% of what those bakeries can do.
Dough behaves differently in a 40 quart mixer than at home, but mostly that's a matter of limiting over-oxidation of the dough while working it more evenly. Proofing in an 80/80 box (80% humidity at 80 degrees) is a little tricky to match at home, and there's no substitute for that steam lever, but I think I can get close enough that I'd stack some of my best efforts against any bakery in town.
Peter Reinhart talks about the batch of bread that won his prize as being magical, and that magic is something I try to achieve every time I bake, and it really only gets magical once every few weeks.
The bakery I would almost pay to work at for a week is Chad Robertson's Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. His books are delightful to read and his bread is out of this world on an average day and almost a religious experience on a day when the magic happens.
Where the home baker fails is consistency. A commercial bakery HAS to be consistent, because customers demand it, but some days it's just better than others. Our families will eat what we bake for them even if we miss the mark from time to time. (Ï'm not sure my wife even notices when I slightly under-proof or over-proof dough or when the baking is just a tad short or over, though I do.)
I've probably only thrown away loaves of bread around 20 times over the years, and some of those were experimental recipes. My wife will never forget the time I (apparently) put in 4X the salt instead of 1 part salt and 3 part sugar in an Austrian Malt bread. But to be fair, I remember the time she tried to make an angel food cake using powdered sugar instead of cake flour, and we both remember her first attempt to bake me an angel food cake 45 years ago, when neither of us knew that the lower element in the oven in our apartment wasn't working, so essentially she baked it under the broiler.
Of all the books I have on baking bread, Hamelman's book does the best job of translating what happens in a commercial scale bakery into the home.
What has always amazed me about small scale bakeries is the breadth of their daily output, not only do they do dozens of loaves of several types of bread every day but also several dozen types of donuts plus cookies, rolls, brownies, cakes and pies.
When we were first married there were two incredible bakeries in Evanston Illinois, and at least one of them, Bennisons, is still there and still going strong, though under different ownership. Their lead baker is truly a master baker, and he has the Couple du Monde cup in his window to prove it. I'd stage for a week under Jory Downer at the drop of a hat, too, in fact he's the reason I joined the Bread Baker's Guild of America. Just being a member of an organization that has bakers like Jory, and Peter Reinhart and Jeff Hamelman is worth the $85 annual dues to me, though their quarterly newsletter is also worth the annual dues.
I've got beef stock, chicken stock, brown chicken stock (the bones are roasted first), turkey stock, duck stock, goose stock, veal stock and demi-glace all in the freezer, plus beef shank bones, beef neck bones, beef knuckle bones and veal shank bones for mid-winter stock making. (Nothing heats up the house better when it gets cold and snowy than simmering stock overnight.) Might be a ham bone or two, too.
Most of the stocks are in relatively small containers, a cup or less, so that I can add them to recipes. (Ikea makes some very good containers for this.) But I do have a few 3-4 quart containers of beef and chicken stock, so that I can make soup, which I usually make in 8-10 quart increments.
I've also got frozen soups: Vegetable Beef, French Onion Soup and Chili. There might still be some ham and bean soup left, too, but I think we ate up the last of the chicken noodle soup. (Found out the hard way that chicken and dumpling soup doesn't freeze well, the dumplings just fall apart.)
Tupperware makes an 8 1/2 cup round container that I wish they sold separately, that's just about the perfect size for soup for two for a meal plus a little left over for lunch the next day.
That's not a question that can be answered in a few words. In general, a portion of the flour, liquid and yeast in the recipe is replaced by some of the sourdough starter, but getting a starter to that point is complex and the timing of the recipe will need to be adjusted as well.
I've written many times about the tradeoff between time and flavor. Sourdough breads to me represent taking that tradeoff to the maximum.
The simple answer is no. If you've ever toured a commercial bread factory (no way you can call it a bakery), you'd know why. They have access to ingredients (including types of flour) and processes we don't. Their unbaked bread doesn't look anything like yours, why should you expect it to bake up anything like yours?
That being said, good technique will help your doughs achieve larger volume and greater flavor. And IMHO the latter is more important than the former. Unless you really like Wonder Bread.
Read Jeff Hamelman's book where he goes through the stages of making good bread. I find I tend to skip or minimize several steps, especially the short rest between scaling/preshaping and final shaping. The type of mixing/kneading you do also has a big impact on the final result.
Decorating cakes is an art form, and not one I've mastered.
December 17, 2017 at 7:44 pm in reply to: What are You Cooking the Week of December 17, 2017? #10280Does sound interesting. Am I correct that you mixed the filling with the shredded spaghetti squash then put it all back in the shell?
The last several times we had spaghetti squash, I made marinara with meatballs.
For the sauce I combined 1 can of Hunts traditional spaghetti sauce (which is garlic free) with a 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes. Heat to a boil.
The meatballs were ground beef, bread soaked in milk, an egg and some spices (basil, marjoram, salt and pepper.) Form into balls and cook in the marinara for a half hour.
I've never grown spaghetti squash, how many do you get from each plant?
I've had days when I couldn't boil water without screwing something up, so I sympathize with you, chocomouse.
Without knowing a lot more about the type of printer you have, whether it's in color or just black, what kind of paper stock you're using and the quantity you intend to print, I can't say what the cost per page is for your printer versus the cost at a copy shop.
However, the chances are pretty good that the difference in cost per page compared to the cost at a copy shop is no more than few pennies per page. (After all, copy shops have to make a profit.) Multiply that by the number of copies you'll be making. Now figure out the cost to drive to the nearest copy shop (at 50 cents/mile.)
Frozen peaches are available year round these days, and IMHO are usually better quality.
Here's a site that shows traditional can numbers and their size:
can sizesHere's a site that might help you type in German (or other languages): http://german.typeit.org/
The Microsoft international keyboard doesn't appear to have the German ß.
The Pfeffernüsse I remember from my grandmother's relatives (she was eastern Iowa German stock) was so hard you could chip a tooth on it!
The toner going out on your printer is just a good excuse to get another printer! (I've been looking at high res photo printers lately.)
I'm a tool/gadget junkie at least as much as I am a recipe/cookbook junkie.
My son just got a 3D printer, or at least that's what I think it is. I wouldn't know what to do with a 3D printer. (On the other hand, the high pressure water cake cutter they had at chocolate school is something I could have a lot of fun with, good thing it costs $100K.) And my wife has said a pretty definite NO to getting a tabletop sheet roller. But what I REALLY want is a blast chiller and an anti-griddle!
Michael Ruhlman in his book "The Making of a Chef" mentions a dish with a variety of soft and hard vegetables in it, the challenge being to get them all done without overcooking some of them. I know when I make vegetable soup or a pot roast I have 3 or 4 points at which I add various ingredients so that some ingredients don't get cooked to mush.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are about the only times I try to do 2 or more dishes in the oven at the same time. A lot of our meals are 'one pot' dishes or at most with just one or two side dishes, and often one of those is raw, like a salad. I have taken to doing broccoli or hard boiled eggs with the standalone induction burner, but mostly because it is fast and easy to control.
We have a file drawer full of recipes on 3x5 cards, plus 6 shelves of cookbooks and recipes in binders or magazine holders in the kitchen, plus another bookcase just around the corner that has several shelves of cookbooks (plus other books) and several shelves of cookbooks in the basement, too.
And I can think of a dozen or more cookbooks I'd still like to have.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
Today is my wife's birthday, so I made a 10x10 Texas Chocolate Sheet cake. (1/2 of the batter recipe but about 1 1/3 X the icing recipe, because it's better when the icing is thick.)
The cocoa butter in chocolate has six different crystal states, referred to as alpha-1 through alpha-6. Alpha-6 only forms after a long time, but alpha-1 through alpha-5 will form any time chocolate is heated and cooled. Properly tempered chocolate should mostly or only contain alpha-5 crystals. (Alpha-1 through alpha-4 have lower melting points than alpha-5.)
Streaks in a good chocolate is called 'blooming', which is when some of the cocoa butter loses the desired alpha-5 crystal state and produces a lighter color chocolate. (Cocoa butter itself is white.) This usually happens if the chocolate gets too warm or is not properly tempered. You can leave a chocolate bar in the sun and it'll get warm enough for the alpha-5 crystals to break down, resulting in a white layer on the outside.
A cheaper chocolate may have other things in it that can separate out.
Usually melting and properly tempering the chocolate again will get rid of the streaks. As long as you don't scorch chocolate, you can reheat it over and over.
The issue of whether almond bark should be randomly shaped pieces or more evenly shaped ones is largely a matter of personal preference. Scoring the chocolate as it cools is the best way to get it to break into more even pieces.
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