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I don't think pre-baking is as important, possibly not necessary at all, on mini-pies.
I'm to the point where for most recipes I use half the yeast it calls for.
I'm not convinced that all blowouts are a matter of 'too much yeast', though.
My big scale can do .05 ounce or 1 gram increments. Since there are 28.3495 grams per ounce, the 1 gram increments are slightly more precise. But I don't think it makes much difference whether you are measuring 3 1/8 ounces as 3.10 or 3.15 instead of 3.125.
Most of the time I use ounces, but I have one bread recipe I'm developing that uses grams, and my pie dough recipes (from SFBI) are in grams. I even have a micro-scale capable of measuring in 1/10th of a gram increments for measuring things like salt.
It sort of depends on the recipe, and not that many are written in grams yet.
Interesting, most oatmeal cookie recipes say to use old fashioned oats rather than quick oats.
I made Austrian Malt Bread instead, I still think it's the best bread for BLT's, and there have been some good local-grown tomatoes at the farmer's markets already.
I think she's trying to get in, I'm not sure if she's been successful or is having problems.
WordPress is usually pretty easy to get signed in to, but anti-spammer features can get in the way.
We replaced the microwave in our kitchen a few years back , the keypad is wearing out on the new one, my guess is we'll have to replace it again in the next year or two. This one is a Panasonic from Best Buy.
They're based in New Zealand. Fisher and Paykel is the company that bought the assets of DCS when they ran into financial difficulties in the mid 90's, I don't think that's the only company they've acquired that way.
The F&P built-in wall ovens in my son's house work fairly well, but there are several cooking modes that I haven't used enough to understand. My wife got all confused trying to use them last Christmas, she managed to get the wrong oven turned on. Fortunately, there wasn't anything being stored in it.
The only other direct experience I've had with them was when I needed to order a new oven rack bracket for my big oven a few years ago. It took 6-8 weeks because I think it had to come from New Zealand, but at least they still had parts available for a 16 year old range.
I get the impression that they're aiming at the higher end of the market, but not quite as high end as Viking or Wolf.
The store locator on their website either doesn't work or they don't have any dealers outside of California. Neither of those are positives.
Visited both Lamar's locations today (the closer one was out of raised glazed), the Salvation Army folks were out collecting at both sites, and doing very well.
Another factor to consider, rye bread isn't supposed to be the star of the show in a deli sandwich. It needs to support or complement the rest of the ingredients, not overwhelm them.
I'm reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H with Robert Alda, father of Alan Alda. They're eating cheese while driving a truck to a new location. Robert Alda dunks the cheese in some mustard. Alan Alda says all he can taste now is the mustard. Robert Alda says, "But it's really great mustard, isn't it!".
When I vary a recipe, I notice differences as well, I'm just not a great judge of comparing how TODAY'S bread is compared to one I made and ate several days ago. Over the years I've probably done 8-10 side-by-side comparisons. I have to have an up-front plan for what to do with all that baked product, though.
The semolina bread recipe I've been tinkering with uses both a soaker and a sponge. If I let the soaker go more than 12 hours, it really needs more water than the recipe calls for. Not sure where the water goes, it may be a combination of evaporation and absorption.
A few years ago I made a baguette recipe and let it rise in 60-90 minute increments, followed by a punch down and short knead to degas the dough and move the yeast around a bit. After 6 rises, it was still going pretty strong. So I've never really bought into the 'running out of oomph' theory of yeast activity. Flour is about 80% starch, and starch is a polysaccharide (ie, made from sugars) waiting for enzyme activity to turn it into something yeast can digest.
I'm not sure that answers your question, the only way to know for sure which you prefer is probably to schedule doing a batch each way so that they both come out of the oven at around the same time. I've done that a few times when I was testing ideas.
In my experience if you let the entire dough batch rise for 12 hours or longer, it begins to take on some of the characteristics of a sourdough bread. Most of the time, that's probably a good thing.
I've learned the hard way that my family and my wife's office don't provide much feedback with comparison taste tests, though. My hunch is you might not be able to detect enough difference to declare a clear winner.
The best doughnuts in town these days are Lamar's. Winchell's is pretty good, too, but I think there are only satellite locations here, with the doughnuts themselves made up in Omaha. (Technically, the Lamar's we usually go to is a satellite location too, but they're made at their downtown Lincoln store. Both locations are usually sold out by lunchtime.)
I have no idea where the local Dunkin Donuts stores get their donuts from, perhaps Des Moines. (As I understand it, few, if any, Dunkin Donuts make donuts on site anymore.) Several of the grocery stores make donuts in-store, none of them are spectacularly yummy, though.
I've never understood the fascination with Krispy Kreme, the donuts are really only good when they're fresh, and then they're still too sweet for me. (And I'm a sugar hound.)
There are a couple of new bakeries that have opened up in the past year, but so far I haven't gotten to them early enough in the day to see what their best wares are like.
My wife like the raised glazed donuts, but I've always been more of a fan of 'cake doughnuts', the KAF donut muffins recipe is pretty good but makes way too many of them. I ought to see if it can be scaled it down to a quarter-batch some time.
A couple of years ago there was a vendor at the Sunday farmer's market close to us that had all sorts of interesting flavors, maple and bacon, for example. They haven't been there last season or this, maybe their in-store business is to the point where they don't need to go to the farmers markets.
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