proth5's blog

Well, just to prove that my mind can get a bit fuzzy after long hours and stressful situations, for the life of me, i thought the title of this was simply "Farmer's Bread" - but it wasn't.

Some people expressed interest in some formulas, I am posting here.  These do come from a German baker's manual (I had to fire up the German translation skills...and get some help...) and I did bake at least one of them (no pictures - I'm back to my old habit of no pictures.)

First the method:

Final Mix desired dough temperature - 82-84F (yep. no typo)

To quote my university hymn “Time like an ever rolling stream” (well, and it originally went on to say “bears all her sons away” which made the whole thing problematic once those of us with the double X were finally allowed to roam the Dear Old Place’s hallowed halls – but that is another story…) and it has been quite a while since I posted part one of this saga. (The rocks and bumps over which the stream has rolled is yet another story – suffice it to say, a long one.)

It’s just a piece of home kitchen equipment, but it has inspired opinions from “absolutely necessary” to “nearly utterly worthless.”

With a lot of baguette dough and a home oven.

Lately I have been working with ever larger batches of dough.  This is good training as it helps develop one’s eye in terms of dividing, does a little hand skill training on wrangling a larger volume, and because I have a tiny kitchen, ups the bar on mise en place and other organizational skills.

I'm bumping about the crumbled abode, not quite myself, unpacking my suitcase, doing piles of laundry, and sorting through my Europain swag.  I try to be restrained on this, because I won't check baggage and a week long trip does fill up the carry-on.

Those of you who followed my exploits at IBIE will be pleased to note that I got a plastic scraper from Caplain - a company that markets small scale bakery machinery including (and this is so exciting) a table top, hand cranked sheeter.   Now that would fit in my house.  How cool is that!

For those of you who have not read it, Mr. Hamelman blogged quite movingly about how the fraternity of bakers who had participated in La Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie became and remained friends despite their positions as competitors.

It's been a while - but here I am, right where I need to be - in Paris at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie.  After a day of tour guiding "adventures" (including the return of the "Naked Baker" - a story for which the world is not prepared) I thought I would go over to the competition area, check out the day 3 baking and snap some photos.   Then rest my tired tootsies and post them to TFL.

This is me, taking photos - which I never do in Paris - not even at my Sunday dinner at a famous landmark - so set expectations accordingly - but here they are for you...

I didn’t think I would be baking at all. The little hobby that supports all this baking fun was keeping me away from home and oven.

However, I am working for a client who employs a chef to prepare meals for the executives and he graciously lent me the executive kitchen for the day (and the evening before.)

As the few of you who read my posts know, 2011 was the year when I wanted to concentrate on formula development.  But as I found myself winding up the year and looking on to the next, I thought it might be time to look through my vast collection of “vintage” recipes and pull out something from a distant and fading past.

My old waffle iron was handed down to me from my grandmother.  As the one or two of you who read my posts know, I am no spring chicken.  Neither is the waffle iron – which is roughly my mother’s age.