Tools

Still Trying to find a good loaf of bread in South Florida!  We have a nice old antique hand cranked bread dough mixer.  Its shaped like a bucket with the crank on the top.  Does anyone ever use one of these?  I would like to try making a larger than normal size recipe.   We're new to the starter/sponge recipes and we just love them and all of the enthusiasm on your site.

Here's one thread on mixer pros and cons: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5874/new-stand-mixer-purchase-question

You can find more using the "Search" utility, since there have been several discussions about the topic.  Happy researching!

PMcCool

this is a tray of soft pretzels just out of the oven.

Certain vitamins will gradually degrade upon exposure to oxygen.  However, I can find no credible source for the drastic decline you cite in whole wheat.  I think it’s a myth, or a reference to refining losses. 

Some millers, such as King Arthur, will show a Julian and a “Best By” date.  The Julian date is a year earlier and indicates the mill date.  I’ve seen Bob’s Red Mill whole grain flour with a “Best By” date nearly 2 years out – a good reason to avoid Bob’s.

cb

When it comes to flour based recipies, I follow my grandmother's PDS (Pinch, Dab, and Smidgen) system of measurement. I often wondered why pasta dough has no recipie, until a friend explained that there could never be one. It all depends on the humidity of the flour, the air, barometric pressure and other uncontrollable variables. The long and short of it, is that it has to look and feel right - somewhat problematic when you've never made it before. I believe, that one should accept what is, by nature, experimental and recognize that experiments are allowed to fail. --- also keep good notes. No sense in repeating the same failure.

I am, by training, an engineer. Engineers produce "practices" - reliable and repeatable methods for creating something that works. Recipies are not "practices" - mearly generic guidelines. I have best practice documents for all my important kitchen products.

For humor look up the FFF system of measurement on the Wikipedia.

Measuring by weight is the most reliable and reproducable method. Get a "portion" scale because you can zero out the weight of the vessel - measure in what you actually use. Zero out your mixing vessel, dump in your cups, grams, and firkins and record in your "practice" what they actually weigh. Don't bother converting. The numbers arn't all that accurate for your venue anyway (any weigh ? :-).

The size of a mixer is bounded by the size of your oven. I have a Kitchen Aid Pro-520 (5 qt, 450 watt) mixer. The smallest commercial grade mixer around. I cannot use anything larger because my oven is only a 1/2 size convection.

Above all, have fun and tollerate the occasional failure.

I am looking to buy an accurate food scale, but have had no luck after ordering two of them, and had to send them back. Can anyone tell me what brand they have/like.  I would appreciate the feedback.  Thanks.

I have a Salter, too. It works fine for larger quantities--flour, water--but if you need to measure salt or yeast, it is waaay off. I tested it with salt when I was doing a 5# batch of flour for pizzas. The scale vs tablespoon measure was off by about 3 times! Just my two cents.

I got these large shakers, and filled one with regular baking flour and the other with a non-stick mix (rice flour and semolina). They're like salt shakers on steroids  ...except filled with flour. Since I got them, I've found them so handy for baking I can't remember how I ever got along without them.

They do everything:

• a smidge more flour dusted evenly over my work surface but my hands are wet
• an even dusting over my couche
• a light sprinkle of raw flour on the topside of a proofed loaf
• flour over top of oil on my work surface (both oil and flour to really not stick)
• a little flour on a piece of parchment paper, so I can scootch a loaf that will proof there
• cover my whole work surface with no thin spots or voids, but without so much flour I risk changing my dough's hydration level too much

No trying to finagle my way in and out of a flour sack with doughy hands - no trying to guess in advance how much flour to load into a dredge bowl - no having to throw out a lot of flour that didn't get used but that can't go back in the sack because it might be wet.

Shakers now seem so obvious to me I think they should be standard in any reasonably-well-equipped kitchen; yet I had to mail order mine from a specialty house.  (Fortunately many of the specialty houses are listed on Amazon.com - search in "Home & Garden" for "shaker dredger". Note the very wide price range, only partly explained by the wide variety of styles. My top is a screen  ...not a "fine" screen and not "holes", just a screen.) My guess is they're not common because there's some better way.

What's the "better way"?

I've been using one just as you describe for a few years. It works great. I also use it to flour food before frying, which is probably its intended purpose. Mine is all metal and has small holes, not a screen.

Hmmm ... Actually, I hadn't thought of using it to flour bannetons. I need another one then for an AP/Rice flour mix.

David

I tried this recipe several times using a bread flour ( dont have the flour recommended). The crust is perfect but the inside is not soft and light but slightly spongy. I cooked it for about 35mins

any help appreciated

Nickk

I often mix 5 pounds of white flour with 26 ounces of whole wheat at 65 percent hydration to make 8 loaves. I have a friend that has and uses a dough pail. She is a gigaintic 4'11' 102 pound PHD that happens to love baking , cooking and gardening. Her dough pail has a clamp to hold it down and when she gets tired her 6'4'' husband takes over.

Ruth, PLEASE post your recipe here!! I TOO tried the link but it didn't work.....just got a "this page can not be found" message.

Thank you!