Blog posts

I'm finally able to drag myself to my computer to edit photos and do a fancy write-up of my latest bakes…  I've been spending too much time at work lately, and have not had time to write about baking, which seems to take more time and effort than just baking alone…  

Let me start by saying that I have always thought of my self as the kind of guy who when faced with a self made disaster, would take credit for it. My reply on another thread that I thought stove top baking in a dutch oven is possible, is why I'm posting my trial bake. Not everything I try is beautiful, as you can see. I think I learned enough to make corrections in the burner level and have a better result. Who ever said you can't really burn bread hasn't tried this method.

Some bread I've been working on for a restaurant competing in a cast iron cook-off.  

Since the liquids in nearly every dough need to be tempered, I went looking for some straight forward, repeatable method to get the temperature I wanted. My answer was to use the microwave. The next step was to figure out how to get the right time for any mass of water or milk, and for any temperature change.

We can see that the time required (Sec) is proportional to the mass of the water (M) and to the change in temperature (ΔT), multiplied by some constant (C). 

M × ΔT = C × Sec

Rearranging to solve for the time; Sec = M × ΔT / C

Back in the fall I promised my niece-in-law that I would make kolaches for her birthday at the end of November. Which I did, using the recipe from the point of departure. They were OK, but not quite right. Too dry, a little doughy and the flavor was not quite the same. Wait a minute, you say, not the same as what? What the heck are these kolaches of which you write?

As I ponder my lost youth I keep going back to when I first started baking bread... 60 some years ago. the lady that taught me only made graham flour bread ..

Yesterday my bread baking world got a strong hit! My wife dragged me in a nutritional health presentation. With most of the advice and recommendations presented I have no issue and I'm ok to eat raw vegetables, fruit, add parsley and cilantro to everything and drink green smoothies.

What really bothers me was that the presenter said that wheat is an extremely harsh food and the gluten in wheat is very bad for your health. Even my beloved sourdough multigrain rolls and bread she considers as bad.

As I had a long weekend off I decided to make my 1st ever Croissants using my  Bourke St Bakery cookbook. The results were pretty impressive and I subbed Doves farm dried yeast for the fresh with no problems. I made half of their recipe and here are the results!