[Mike Nolan]

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.

[Mike Nolan]

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.

[Mike Nolan]

His name is Michael.

[Mike Nolan]

8 ounces of nearly any kind of candy is going to be a lot of calories. Halva is basically nuts (sesame seeds) and honey, calories and more calories.

[Mike Nolan]

Some sources claim that after 24-48 hours (at room temperature presumably), the yeast will have used up most of the available sugars and that limits the amount of rise in the final proof and during baking.

I'm not sure if that's scientifically accurate, but I did notice when working with Peter Reinhart's baguette dough for the testing of his 'Artisan' book, where the dough was made and then cold-retarded for multiple days, that the bread was not quite as airy after day 2. It also had more of a sourdough texture and taste to it.

I think dough that doesn't rise quite as much is a good thing for pizza dough, where you want some density to the crust, so that it gets crunchy, I"m not so sure it's a good thing for a loaf of bread.

The usual rule of thumb is that a sponge should use no more than 40-50% of the total weight of flour in the final dough

[Mike Nolan]

28 grams of halva - 133 calories. 4.75 calories/gram

39 grams of Hersheys Chocolate - 214 calories. 5.49 calories/gram

Now, would I rather eat halva or a Hershey bar? Definitely the latter!

BTW, 15 grams of tahini has 89 calories, or 5.93 calories/gram. (But I'm not sure a low-calorie chocolate chip cookie makes any sense, or would taste good.)

[Mike Nolan]

I know how to do the math, but I think posting a recipe that calls for 3.56 ounces of flour in one place, 2.36 ounces of a different flour in another place and 2.11 ounces of a third flour in another place might not be one people would be willing to make.

If I adjust the recipe so everything is in 1/4 or perhaps 1/10 ounce increments, I will have to make it once or twice just to make sure that doesn't upset the flavor or texture balance.

I may just post it in grams.

[Mike Nolan]

Personally, I don't care for the taste of a corn starch glaze on bread, when I glaze rye bread I do it with egg, usually egg white, using whole egg or egg yolk darkens the loaf. (I don't care for the 'Dutch Crunch' glaze on Vienna bread, either.) YMMV.

If your seam isn't closing, you may need (more) slashes to control the expansion of the dough in the desired direction.

The semolina loaf I've been playing with uses a soaker that sits for at least 12 hours and a sponge that sits for about 90 minutes. As you can see from the picture I first posted about a week ago, the internal structure has lots of big holes in it, and the taste has some sourdough-like tang to it, too:

I will need to make this bread again in the next week, I've been tinkering with the flour ratios, which affects the amount of water needed, and I need to get final weights so I can post the recipe. I've been weighing this one in grams, converting it to ounces might involve resizing it a bit or using a lot of fractions.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't see a display panel, so it seems likely that the oven dial just has temperatures notches on it, like mine does. Mine has buttons to select things like broil, bake, convection, I don't see those, so there may be 2 knobs to control the oven, one to set the mode and one to set the temperature.

It looks like they've made a lot of changes in 20 years.

[Mike Nolan]

Here's a brand I had not heard of: Thor.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Thor-Kitchen-30-in-4-2-cu-ft-Dual-Fuel-Range-in-Stainless-Steel-HRD3088U/300401499?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cTHD%7cG%7c0%7cG-BASE-PLA-D29-Appliances%7c&gclid=CjwKEAjwpJ_JBRC3tYai4Ky09zQSJAC5r7rukO04UgXZaryvMC1eRZsU-ALM6g7FgUrlzwpVIe3aMxoCHpPw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Mike Nolan]

The brand is DCS, not DCR.

[Mike Nolan]

South Bend is about 80 miles into Indiana, but Schaumburg is in the NW suburbs, so you have to factor in another hour or more on the Chicago freeways. The Bolingbrook store would be closer anyway, that's further south in the west suburbs.

There's definitely an art to baking bread in a convection oven, I haven't mastered it but I'm not sure how good the convection fan is in my DCS range. I have been using it for the first part of baking fruit pies lately.

I'm tempted to try turning it down to 275-300 and see how it does then.

A deck oven is kind of a convection oven on steroids, but I've never had a chance to use one of those, either.

My older son's house has a Fisher and Paykel dual wall oven, it's got more cooking cycles than I've got fingers.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Gas ovens and gas grills will have hot spots, too. Try the 'bread test' in your gas oven sometime. (Cover a rack with slices of bread and see how evenly they toast. A chef friend told me this is the first thing he does when he moves to a different kitchen.)

• This reply was modified 8 years, 3 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

One thing you have to be careful about with ovens that advertise they can handle a full sheet pan is they may not provide enough space for air circulation around it. You need at least an inch in every direction. I can fit a full sheet pan in my big oven, but just barely, and there's less than a half inch between the pan and the walls. I found some 3/4 sized sheet pans at a restaurant supply store in Pittsburgh, they're about 22 x 17.

[Mike Nolan]

According to the Ikea website, the only Ikea in Indiana is one that will open this fall in Fishers, which I think is near Indianapolis. They stick to major metro areas.

I remember looking at Wolf back in 1996 and thinking it was the ugliest range we'd ever seen. We went with a DCS 48" dual fuel range, DCS was splitting off from Viking at the time. (DCS used to be the manufacturing division of Viking.) They got kind of a bad rep after some financial problems in the early 2000's and were acquired by Fisher and Paykel in 2004. I had to order a replacement oven rack bracket for mine a couple of years ago, I think it came from Australia; it took 6 weeks. Otherwise, mine has been very dependable, the only other problem we've had in 20 years was a hinge issue that was covered by the warranty.

I know a few people who have installed commercial ranges, they had to put fireboard behind the range and on both sides. I hadn't heard about the lack of door insulation, but I'm not surprised by that.

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