devlin

I just found them! And yeah, great prices.

Thanks folks. Those are all good suggestions.

My experience is that refreshing a commercially yeasted biga multiple times will only take you so far and then it starts to degrade, losing strength and becoming intolerably boozy or alchohol tasting. I'm assuming that's normal, otherwise it would be another alternative for bread bakers who are committed to fabulous bread. I've never heard of anybody having any success doing that. But I'm having a little trouble understanding why you are reluctant to maintain a sourdough culture if you're interested in doing essentially the same thing with a biga. Why not just start a sourdough culture instead (or buy one)? Or, alternatively, why not just whip up a biga for single uses? Or maybe I'm not understanding what you mean. Surely maintaining a biga in the way you suggest would take more commitment than simply making single-use bigas, and at the same time, it's also is pretty much what you'd do if you were maintaining a sourdough culture. So, I'm a little stumped in that regard. I'm assuming the old dough would work in a pumpernickel. Like all traditional breads, pumpernickel was originally made without commerical yeast. If I were you? I'd experiment with your ideas and see where it takes you. If you're reluctant to play and experiment, you're going to continue to make breads the way you're making them now, and which you seem to want to move beyond. There's no getting around experimenting when it comes to learning how to make really good breads. I know you're looking for a quick fix and fast way to know how to do it, but I don't think it's actually possible. Also, it occurs to me you're thinking maintaining and using a sourdough culture is complicated and time consuming/labor intensive and difficult, which it's really not, once you learn how to use one. But again, it's a thing you have to commit to in order to learn how to do it. Once you learn how, it's actually not any more difficult than making a biga or making a bread with commercial yeast.

Do you have a good source for a food sprayer?

Here's one: 1 ounce sour cream or buttermilk 2 cups heavy cream stir sour cream into heavy cream and let stand at 80-90 degrees for about 24 hours. Store, covered, in refrigerator. I use a canning jar. In the summer, I just put it outside or somewhere not air conditioned where I know it's warm enough. In colder weather, I use a cheap plastic cooler with a lamp clamped on the side, the bulb part bent inside the cooler (40 or 60 watt bulb) loosely covered. Get a cheap plastic thermometer and set next to the jar to make sure the temp stays around what you want. Check it periodically, give it a shake. When it's the consistency you want, put it in the refrigerator.

I'm not sure whether I'll be addressing your questions completely or correctly, but here's my off the cuff response. First, if you're using a biga over three days, it should be refreshed probably the 2nd day, which, at least in my experience, will keep it more viable than simply starting a biga on day one and letting it sit the next day and then using it on day three. There's that. As for biga versus sourdough, I guess my first question is whether you mean biga with commercial yeast. Because if you're going to simply convert a commercially yeasted biga to a sourdough culture,... well... I don't know that that's the way to go. And in fact I'd just say, No. Don't do that. Bigas are meant to be started ahead of the actual bread making, refreshed over time depending on the length of the fermentation time frame you want, and then used as part of the final dough (with perhaps a bit of the dough saved for the next batch, but I've never actually used the "old dough" method myself). Sourdough cultures, on the other hand, are living creatures you maintain for as long as you want to maintain them. For me, bigas are fine. Use a commercially yeasted biga for better flavor in your yeasted breads; or use your sourdough culture as a sort of biga/preferment for your sourdoughs. But sourdough cultures are an entirely different animal. Or sort of. You can use a sourdough culture as a biga, but you can't use a commercially yeasted biga for a an actual sourdough culture. In terms of maintenance, you have to pay attention to the sourdough in a way that you don't have to with the biga, because the biga is a short-term method, whereas the sourdough is a method that takes the place of commercial yeast and you have to feed it for it to continue to live. The biga? You make one and use it. Done. The sourdough culture? You marry it.

I'm looking for sources for packaging bakery products such as cakes, cookies, breads, etc. Attractive bags for cookies and breads. Nice boxes and wrapping for cakes.

stupid question. I'm not sure I'm following exactly how you process the skin. Are you using it fresh from the uncooked chicken? Raw? Fried? I must sound like an idiot, but I'm not sure.

You are my hero. Thank you!

Linda, could you maybe forward that recipe to me? I just bought a book of Heatter's cookies that I was sure had that in it, but alas, no recipe.

Golly. A thread about Arkansas. I'd be interested to learn about the sort of bread baking going on in Little Rock. Anything besides chain bread places? We keep toying with the idea of relocating back to Arkansas some day, and I'm wondering whether there's a place for artisan bread bakers there. I grew up in Mountain Home (originally, family was from Chicago and I moved back later to go to school and then stayed for 25 years). Mtn. Home has changed considerably since I left for Chicago, but not enough to include anything that might be considered a truly fine restaurant. My father had what used to be one of the better restaurants in the town many many years ago. People actually lined up out the door on the weekends, and it was a fairly roomy place. The restaurants are decidedly average there. You'll have to travel a long distance for truly good dining. Devlin The Village Bakery

Lived in Chicago for 25 years. Ate pizza at all the major and minor pizza joints til I was blue in the face. Been to Italy a number of times, lots of pizza joints, love pizza, all kinds. That said, the quarrel over whether particular forms of regional pizzas are authentic always strikes me as superfluous. Is it good? Do you like it? Does it really matter whether it's thin, thick, deep dish, stuffed, cracker crust. There are all styles of pizza, and I love them all, depending on the quality (although given my druthers my preference is the Italian cracker crust pizza with the barest of fresh ingredients, preferably enjoyed anywhere in Italy). Malnati's was my first Chicago pizza, and at the time it was the best I'd had. I love Uno and Due (the chains aren't the actual downtown restaurants and don't come close), Giordano's, etc. Oven Grinders was great for the meditteranean flat bread and Greek salad, but didn't care for their pizzas. Still, the meditteranean flat bread is worth going for, and with a salad, it's a meal. And now I'll admit that one of my favorite pizzas comes from a little hole in the wall in Ukrainian Village where I lived for ten years. Bella's, on Chicago Avenue. Not every pizza is good, though, and frankly the one pizza I loved more than nearly any other pizza in Chicago was their deep dish whole garlic pizza. Fabulous.

sorry, didn't mean to repost....

That's it. I'd forgotten about Vogue Drapery. No, not Bennisons. I think it was a German bakery, but I can't remember the name. Meiers? Maybe that was the name. The location's definitely the right one. Has it gone out of business altogether? I remember Blind Faith, and although I'm sure there are plenty of good bakeries amongst those mentioned here, I can't think any of them do a bread pudding like the one I used to get at the place on Main street. I've never been able to find or replicate anything close to it. [edited to clarify stuff....]

All fabulous suggestions. Thanks so much!

Lived in Evanston many years ago, around the corner from a bakery that had been there a million years, but I can't remember which street, except either Dempster or Main, just off Chicago, or just west a couple or so blocks. I remember it was somewhere close to the Fishbowl store on the corner of Chicago and Dempster, but I keep confusing Dempster with Main. I lived on a street immediately west of Chicago in that area, just across from a small park. I think it was a German bakery, and they made the best bread pudding I've ever had anywhere. Anybody have a notion what I'm talking about? I'm hoping it's still there.

Now why didn't I think of that. Fabulous suggestion. Thank you!

I'd like to try making duck confit, but I'm wondering whether using fats other than the actual duck fat is, like, sacrilege, or something. Because frankly, where in the world do you get the amount of duck fat called for in a duck confit without roasting 40 ducks in a row first? Googling, I see substitutions such as olive oil, canola, lard, etc. Is this okay? Do they work as well in terms of preserving the duck? Is one better than another? Help?

A big yes here as well for oven-toasted bread. I threw away my toaster 15 years ago. Barely toasted (a couple or so minutes, roughly) in the oven makes perfect toast. For me, a lovely, open-crumb durum bread is the absolute best thing for poached and soft-boiled eggs. It's got enough texture and strength to hold the egg, and the flavor is there but just barely and not enough to compete with the egg. It roughly approximates an English muffin in that regard. Devlin The Village Bakery

Fattigmands last forever. But so do a lot of cookies, especially when you freeze them. And I think it may be a rare cookie that can't be successfully frozen.

Very clearly sounds like a tart pan with a removable bottom, as Anna notes with the link, not a springform pan. Since it calls for a shortbread (pastry) crust, there shouldn't be a problem with leaking. I bake custard based tarts in those pans all the time, and there's never a problem with leaking or removing the tart from the pan. I've also substituted a round cake pan at times, and I'd recommend you try that, using a round pan that is equivalent in size to the tart pan. Simply line the bottom of the cake pan with parchment paper, and maybe butter and flour the sides. But you could probably simply line the bottom with parchment and then run a sharp slender knive around the edges once it's cooled to remove it from the pan.

my response got lost.... Anyway, yes, they're very generous with their samples, but I need bulk stuff to use in big batches, and I'm thinking they may not be as generous as all that.

Okay, another question. Any less pricey venue for this? Amoretti's stuff is really expensive.

Although you've already decided on the thing, I guess, I wanted to add another combination I love. One of the great restaurants in Louisville does a basil souffle with a blueberry/basil/hint of cinnamon sauce drizzled through the center. It's one of my favorite things.

Chefpeon's answer made me laugh and then about made me cry. Yes, that's about how I'd define it. Seriously, it's next to impossible to come up with a definitive definition of "artisan breads," and I'm always hard pressed to do it myself. But for me, it is actually much as described by chefp's message. Now and again I wonder why I'm working so hard and in such primitive conditions (I'd also add that in the winter it gets damned cold in my bakery which has no heat in addition to no air conditioning), and I wonder whether converting my oven to gas might be the way to go. And then I think, No, of course not. Because no self-respecting "artisan" bread baker would bake bread in anything but a wood-fired oven. It helps that my clients say things like, "Thank god you're baking today." C. Devlin The Village Bakery