Howdy Ya'll: I am new to this...Please advise :)
Howdy ya'll
Scooter G here. I am not new to cooking (loving food creation since I was 7) but I have always had a mental block when it comes to Baking. I have recently decided to go into a small pizza business (pizza dough has always been ok for me) but by chance with an accident with one of the doughs (I forgot about it over night) I cooked the dough and a good loaf of bread emerged and since then I have gone crazy just playing in the kitchen lately with baking. Now I want to get serious about it. I am asking if ya'll will offer advice, recipes, and general knowledge so that I might to be able to create breads as wonderful as I see that the artisan belonging to this group produce. I hope to be able to one day even join the creative ranks found within these pages and contribute to it as well. Thanks in advance for the for all your help.
Scooter G
Scooter G....Since you want to make artisan breads suggest you take a class at the San Francisco Baking Institute. Will save you a lot of time and frustration. I spent a year with 6 books and modest success. One week at the SF Baking Institute moved me light years ahead in knowledge and skills......Good luck
In all your trials and until I can hopefully find the time to do something so great as the San Francisco Baking Institute. What Book would you recomend most as the best for general knowledge? I hopw to always remember that with every failure comes knowledge and the chance to learn and succeed.
Glorious Cooking and Baking to All
Scooter G Fast
if this is somthing you truly it yakes long hard workand skill only come with time.
you mist crawl before you walk, walk before you run and run before before you get to the peak of t the summit
Pro Baker for over 25 years-----Ret
Ret,
Sir thank you for your reply and I hope that it is the years that I have seiing that I am only 37 but what I hope to have one day is to look back on the years and smile knowing that I may have created some fonderful (and disasterous) foods in my life time and the hopeful joy that I might be able to bring my friends with atrs that are being lost to busy schedules and what ever else that goes on in the world and bring a bring prople together with ggood food and conversation which is another lost art but dont get me started. Thanks again
Glorious Cooking and Baking to All
Scooter G Fast
well start crawling then
you have a pizza business so that means you have a scale and at least a 60 quart mixer and a dough hook
posted on this thred
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/6170/soft-moist-crumb
are the formulas for two basic white breads these are a strght dough so the mixing is not very complacated
sometimes play is the same thing as lerning.
the second formula can be used for soft type dinner rolls may be a chang of pace when you serve a dinner item a choiice of bread or your one baked soft dinner rolls.
so take these basic bread formulas and play
Pro Baker for over 25 years-----Ret
Ret,
While kneading I always feel like I am incorperating too much flour into the dough and I am not even sure if you can kneed too much flour into the dough but I am just trying to keep it from sticking for enought timr to kneed for 10 or so minutes.
Glorious Cooking and Baking to All
Scooter G Fast
thouse mixes are shop tested they have worked thih out flaw for years
do not add more than the flour amoung stated and give them time in your mixer. the dough will clean up the mixer like a pizza dough but will take a little more time
let the dough have the time it needs.
new bakers make the mistake of not allowing enought time for the dough to clean up the mixer and start adding more flour
dont do it
pizza flour it stronger than patent flour so do not use pizza flour
get a patent bread flour from your supplyer there are many prands to pick from but if you tell spur supplyer wou want patent bread you should get the right of flour from him.
Pro Baker for over 25 years-----Ret
Ret if not fancy enough to have a mixer but only the hand. how do I kneed with out sticking so much and not over flouring the dough? thanks so much
Glorious Cooking and Baking to All
Scooter G Fast
i thought you were in the pizza bisiness so i thought you had a mixer SORRY
in a bowl to start with grab the part of the gough that is farthest away from you and grab it and fold it into the center. turn the bowl 1/4 turn and repete.
do this untill the dough has formed in the bowl is ferm enough to put on a work bench
then nkead with ether the french fold or the slap on the bench and fold ontill the dough is smoth and a little tacky to the touch not sticky the dough is done when it will strech thin without tearing (window pane test and does not stick to your hands.
sorry about assuming you had a mixer
these breads work well with and supermarket flour that is labeled better or best for bread
Pro Baker for over 25 years-----Ret
Ret I am in the beginning stages of peneing up a Pizza place and right now I am just finalizing the menue and I just gpt tennative approval for my humble location. I am starting on all the legal hoops now so at this point I am small and I only deliver to a select few but he folks helping me in varius parts of this endevor are benifiting from this becasue there are usually deliveries 3 times a week becasue there is no way my family can eat all this. I have been in sales in one way or another for the past 20 years and I am just usually the guy who got selected to do the cooking for all the get togethers. I have had no formal education but have learned from some of the greatest cooks I have ever met and I just receintly cleared a mental block on baking andf I found that I enjoy it and want to add it to what I do so I am by all accounts a novice to baking but I have the desire to learn. Thnak you for all your help so far and today I am going to try the pretzels, Blueberry creamcheese bread (but I am going to use raspberries), and maybe something else becaue the weather is starting to turn to ran and I was able to get all my good weather outside chores done yesterday so I could focus on the kitchen today any other recomdations of what to make. Thanks again
Glorious Cooking and Baking to All
Scooter G Fast
Scooter,
I suggest you try the lessons on the front page of this site. Your progress will measured by your ability to bake with confidence using the 4 basic ingredients. Work on the first one first and develop the skills to be able to repeatedly create good bread. Then try another. Each of the breads in the lessons Floyd has provided will teach you something new that you need to understand. I have found if you learn to understand the condition of the dough by how it feels, you will quickly find success. Make single batches and mix by hand. All you need is a spoon and bowl, scale and parchment paper. Plenty of time for machines later.
Good luck.
Eric
I was planning on working on lessons 1 and 2 this weekend and I hope after all the trials , that I might be able to ask a few questions and I am not a fan of machines I want to learn the old arts.
Glorious Cooking and Baking to All
Scooter G Fast
Hey Scooter,
I'm no expert, but I followed the method shown on this page, http://www.sourdoughhome.com/stretchandfold.html, which I found somehow through this site, and I've never had such an easy time or a lofty rise! You don't need to follow his recipe, the method of resting then stretching and folding works for any recipe where you would otherwise knead the dough. I made a sourdough cinnamon swirl bread following this method and it was perfect!
Good luck and have fun!