devlin

I've been frustrated lately by a potential client and my frustration is moving from slow burn to boiling pissiness. Here's the deal. My bread business has been going very well. The responses have been more than good, and I've been pleased with my interactions with chefs and restaurant folks who are very generous with their time and their praise. So that's all good. And then this thing happened which has left me baffled. I know I need to just drop it and move on, but I'm still baffled, and my bafflement finally turned into anger. About three weeks ago, I phoned one of my favorite restaurants and set up an appointment with the executive chef to sample some of my sourdoughs. I didn't really expect his reaction which was frankly over the top with praise. He tried everything, asked others in the kitchen to join him, and he just couldn't say enough good stuff about the breads. He compared them to their current supplier, noting that while they are very good, "These," he said, waving his hands over the now half-gone loaves, "These are the real deal." He said he'd been wanting to get away from their usual bread guys, but the options hadn't been there til now. He engaged me in conversation about how he might use them, how the owner might use them with his wine tastings. He was just glowing. He said he'd call me the following Tuesday but that if I didn't hear from him, because he's busy (understandable, I get that), be sure to call him. And so I did. He wasn't there. Phoned back, he said he was in the middle of prep and asked me to call him back. I did. Again, he wasn't there. This went on for three weeks. And then my husband took over and tried as well. Nada. So. I emailed the owner who is involved in the daily operation and reiterated the meeting with the chef and asked whether I might bring some stuff in for him to sample. Again, nothing. No response. So yesterday I email the restaurant and ask whether there are any reservations open for Valentine's dinner, and voila, an immediate email response about their dinner availability. I can understand chefs and owners are busy. But ya know what? I'm busy too. I'm also a big girl. If you don't want the product, just say so. It's business. I'm not asking you guys to marry me. Any suggestions about how to deal with this sort of thing? Or maybe I just do what I guess is the obvious, simply drop it and move on. But really, how hard is it to just say, "Thanks very much, but we're not interested right now."

As somebody else noted, it's eight brownies. Will the lack of her business break you? The responses to educate the customer about how freezing works and how bakeries actually prepare their products are good responses. Don't lie. Didn't yer mama teach you that?

Anybody know anything about this manufacturer? Good bet? No? I'm looking at a used dough retarder at about $1300. Looks good. Never heard of the company.

While I can't respond off the top of my head to your yeast question, I would think David's breads would work as easily with the stretch and fold/turn method. I bake a variety of breads, including a fairly dense bleu cheese and walnut loaf and a sweet potato/pecan/raisin bread, a multi-grain whole wheat loaf, etc, and I use only the stretch and turn method. Whenever I find a new thing I want to experiment with, or coming up with my own formulas, I use the same method. I never knead. I do understand the occasional delight in physically kneading, though. But I actually enjoy the stretch and fold method, and shaping the doughs is always lovely. I don't use commercial yeast anymore either, which is why I'm unable to veryify your yeast question. Two of the breads in my post above are sourdough and the center one is an earlier bread with commercial yeast that I don't make anymore because it's just too wet. All my breads are fairly wet doughs, though. And I turn and shape using bench scrapers. ← ← I'll try. Although it sometimes depends on the temp of your kitchen (and the temps of your water and the like), generally speaking, I will fold the dough over the space of 4 hours, which means three folds and then shaping and proofing. What you want to see is sufficient rise, a nice firm rise with some evidence of activity (a few bubbles here and there, nothing extreme). You'll get the feel over time. The fold itself goes like this. You let the mixed dough rise in a bucket or bowl for about an hour (my doughs are fairly wet, which makes a difference), scrape it out of the bowl onto your work surface, and using a bench scraper (or what have you), gently extend the dough into a circle, not too much, not too little (I'm sorry, that's as exact as I can get), maybe about doubling the size of the pile of dough you've scraped out onto the work space. Just push or slide your bench scraper under the dough all around and gently pull a bit to widen the dough. And then starting on the right-hand side of the dough, pushing the bench scraper underneath the dough again, fold the dough over 1/3, letter-like, onto itself. Then moving to the top, do the same thing, and then to the left, and then the bottom. Pick the dough up with the bench scrapers and dump it upside down into your bowl. Cover with a towel. Repeat twice (more or less, depending on the activity of the dough. Shape, proof, bake. Hope that helps.

The other methods are probably very good, any maybe even easier, but my own has always worked for me: butter and flour. Works every time.

While I can't respond off the top of my head to your yeast question, I would think David's breads would work as easily with the stretch and fold/turn method. I bake a variety of breads, including a fairly dense bleu cheese and walnut loaf and a sweet potato/pecan/raisin bread, a multi-grain whole wheat loaf, etc, and I use only the stretch and turn method. Whenever I find a new thing I want to experiment with, or coming up with my own formulas, I use the same method. I never knead. I do understand the occasional delight in physically kneading, though. But I actually enjoy the stretch and fold method, and shaping the doughs is always lovely. I don't use commercial yeast anymore either, which is why I'm unable to veryify your yeast question. Two of the breads in my post above are sourdough and the center one is an earlier bread with commercial yeast that I don't make anymore because it's just too wet. All my breads are fairly wet doughs, though. And I turn and shape using bench scrapers.

I don't knead any of my breads. I spent a long time learning a variety of bread techniques, and once I read a comment in Alan Scott and Daniel Wing's bread oven book about Scott's discussion a few years ago with a young baker who was learning a fairly new (to contemporary bakers anyway) technique that required only the folding, or stretch and turn method and the benefits of that, I started to experiment and quickly abandoned the standard techniques. I haven't kneaded bread for 5 years now. I've posted this before, but here, for illustrative purposes: and, and, Life's too short to spend it kneading bread. Especially when you've got 40 loaves staring you in the face

Here's a question: Is your friend planning that this business will be her primary income right off the bat? For me, going into my very fledgling business, all of the issues noted so far were significant, but since I'm fortunate enough to be able to not have to rely on the business to support me, I have the luxury (knock on wood) to get it together and not starve at the same time. While I didn't do a formal sort of market study, I did bide my time looking around at the situation in my area in earnest and asking a lot of questions. And since I didn't want the overhead and total risk of renting or buying or building a space, I decided to work with the space I had at home, and my husband and I spent a couple of years looking for a house to buy (we were in the market anyway because we'd relocated and were renting) that could accommodate the right space for a bakery and an Alan Scott oven. One of the reasons we bought this house (apart from the fact we love it) is that it had an attached garage that was separated from the house by a bathroom, laundry room and mud/sun room, and so it was a perfect setup in that regard. It's taken about 5-6 years to even really get up and running, from conception to now. During those years I read everything about artisan breads and the business of artisan baking I could get my hands on, practiced til I got what I was looking for and had a bank of products I have complete faith in, attended an Alan Scott bread oven conference, talked to people in the business, and slowly put together a bakery. One of the things that kept me going were the stories of those who were in the business. They almost all of them started as I have. Very small. Like baking breads in their kitchens and taking them around to friends and wherever they found people to try them. I started by giving breads and cakes and tarts to friends, then to other interested folks, with the caveat that I was practicing on them and once I opened for business, I'd be selling the stuff, should they want it. My husband works for an international company out of Italy, and the Italians here who all pass chain bread stores every day won't buy from those places anymore. They have a standing order with me, and they frequently drop by my husband's office asking when the next bake is. They're some of my best pr. My doctor begs me for bread when I see her. One of my neighbors orders 15 loaves at a time. I've been going along like that for awhile now, and just a couple of weeks ago, I got my first big client, one of the top-rated restaurants in the region. It's as much as I can handle on my own right now and it's a learning curve for me. I'm streamlining process and prep more and more which helps, and thinking about how to hire somebody on a very part-time basis and then only occasionally to help with that. Right now, I don't need it. But I hope I will within a year. Each step has been nerve-wracking and scary and has seemed just barely doable, sometimes impossible, til I've managed to actually do it. My husband thought I was out of my mind when I started talking about this 5 and 6 years ago. Now he's one of my biggest advocates and he's absolutely certain of the eventual, bigger success. Which is something from him. He's a business man to the core. The Village Bakery

It may rise a little faster, and if you're really sensitive to the taste of commercial yeast, you may notice a slight change in flavor. If you're satisfied with the smaller amount, though, I'd stick with that. As far as I'm concerned, the less yeast the better. Since I've switched to sourdoughs, commercial yeast lends an unpleasant flavor to breads that lingers and overpowers the dough.

Berries later fer sure. I just figured that was a given.

I've made mousses in the past and kept them in the fridge for a day or so while I keep eating them. According to Bo Friberg's text, you can keep them up to a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Thanks so much for the clarification. I knew there was a difference, just not precisely what. And thanks for the almond paste recipe and link. Now that I look at it, I know I've had that version in pastries. I'm interested in using it in Stollen, which I've never made before. I'm assuming if I want something less coarse I can simply grind the almonds more, yes?

Anybody have a favorite almond paste formula and method? Stupid question: how is almond paste different from marzipan?

I second Jack's recs. The "new" method advanced in the article is in fact very old, but I guess more rediscovered than anything. And you really can get the same results by simply using a very hot pre-heated oven and a baking stone.

Sorry I missed this thread. But for future interest, some of my favorites (a couple already noted): Seviche, on Bardstown Road (one of my very favorite restaurants) Kashmir, on Bardstown (a pretty good Indian restaurant in a town that doesn't do much of this) L&N Wine Bar and Bistro, Mellwood Avenue (another favorite place, especially for enjoying good food with a good wine list) The Oak Room, at the Seelbach Hotel downtown on Fourth Street (fabulous, and fabulous wines) The English Grill, at The Brown Hotel, on Broadway and Fourth (ditto) Vincenzo's, on Fifth Street (a good, expensive Italian restaurant) And one I've yet to try but gets uniformly rave reviews: Lilly's, on Bardstown Road I've heard wonderful things about Proof, noted above, as well, and also Bourbon's Bistro. But it's true that if you simply drive to the Highlands area on Bardstown Road, you can park and walk a block and find a good restaurant.

Rather than upping the flour/water ratio, why not try using less buckwheat? Maybe a 40/60 or 30/70 ratio instead.

Just briefly, because I'm doing prep work for roughly 80 loaves and several tarts and cakes and I'm frazzled,... keep in mind that if you are measuring your flours using cups you'll all be getting different values. Every flour is different, apart from the obvious differences between high gluten or bread flour and all purpose. The water content of each flour varies bag to bag, and so to get the most consistent results, flours should, ideally, be weighed. So if you ask one person across the country (or even next door) how much flour per cup she's using, you'll likely get different results anyway because your flours will more than likely be different weights. One person's weather or climate may be enough to shift the balance as well. As for the commercial yeast versus natural leavens, there shouldn't be any reason a natural leaven wouldn't work with this method. Another thing. You'll likely never get an identical loaf of bread to somebody else's because we all do subtle things differently. Even if you're working side by side and use identical weights and measures and fermentations, the difference in shaping a loaf (or throwing it in the pot) will make a difference in how one person's loaf looks versus another's. The Village Bakery

A couple of thoughts about what some folks have been experiencing as not just very wet dough but a wet loaf once it's baked. I'm not sure whether it's simply that you're not baking long enough (as Abra noted above, you should try for an internal temp of roughly 205 degrees Farenheit) or it's that you're unused to a method that tends to produce a fairly inherently moister bread than most of us are used to. Also, your bread will likelier seem wetter than normal if you cut it open right away, and so you should generally wait for at least 20 minutes to open a loaf. I prefer not to cut open my loaves for a full day after baking. But that's probably a more desirable habit with sourdoughs than breads with commercial yeasts.

← Sorry I'm so long in responding, and you may have already gotten some answers. I'm not entirely sure the exact hydration of my breads, but they're roughly 65-75%, and the one I can't fold by hand but needs bench scrapers is 80% at least. It's more nearly poolish consistency from start through build-up and baking. I've never simply let a dough sit for 12 hours without refreshing, so I can't comment on that particular method. I go through a fermentation process, with a basic sort of poolish starter, and that sits at room temp for anywhere from 12 to 17 hours. And then I add the remaining flour and water and whatever other ingredients specific to the particular bread, and then it rises from 2 to 4 hours, turning every hour, with a rise of roughly an hour in the final hour. And, of course, I don't use anything but the floor of the oven for baking. No pots, no pans, etc. But even when I was baking my breads in the beginning in my electric oven, I simply put the breads directly on a pre-heated oven stone to bake (the one super wet dough on parchment).

If you're going with the pot technique and are worried about your cast iron pot, I'd maybe put the dough on parchment paper first and then put it in the pot.

With the exception of one bread, I use exclusively sourdough starter for my breads and no machine mixing or kneading. And the one I do use commercial yeast with and a mixer for the initial mix doesn't get kneaded either because it's just too wet. My doughs are two-day (generally) fermentations with a build-up of flours and ingredients. I don't know that I'd call it "minimalist," though. It's a pretty complex, drawn-out process. For illustrative purposes, if you'd like to see my own results, you can check out my web site (pics head several of the pages there): The Village Bakery

My own methods are very like Andiesenji's just above. Because I'm working with several great big batches in pretty big tubs all at once, I often only wash the first one I work with right off the bat, and I do that by scraping it as thoroughly as I'm able as I'm dumping the dough, and then immediately spraying with hot water. I often end up with a couple of plastic tubs unwashed though, and I discovered later that they're often easier to clean than the others. So I leave them sometimes even a day til the dough dries completely and then I simply scrape it out with a plastic dough scraper. Comes right off. Like magic.

An addendum: I certainly mean no disrespect by my message above, only a friendly suggestion about my own way of thinking about baking and cooking.

I guess I approach baking and cook books very differently (just to continue the recent suggestions that experimenting with only two recipes from any given book may not be quite the thing). Julia Child's books, for example, or Pierre Herme's or Jeffrey Hamelman's, or really any baking or cooking book I've gotten over the years, it's my experience that they work best as jumping off points, for the most part, and that while any one of them might hold only a small handful of recipes that I find I really connect to, I appreciate so many of them for contributing to my bank of knowledge, or for giving me just one or two things I really love. And "a small handful," as far as I'm concerned anymore, is way more than I've come to expect is really reasonable. One or two good things from one source, even one sometimes, is more than enough. I consider even one good thing a treasure. I think the breakthrough in that thinking came from watching Nigella Lawson a few years ago when she'd go into her small library (crammed with books, despite the space), pull a book off the shelf and find a bookmarked recipe, maybe the only thing she really loved from that one resource, but the best of its kind (at least as far as she'd been able to discover so far), and that was enough. At this point in my learning and career, I figure it's my responsibility to take what I know and make a good thing, and so while I take advantage of other people's knowledge and their own recipes or formulas, if I think I might like the basic premise of a thing, I'll work on it til it's a thing I like or give it up as a thing simply not to my particular tastes. I might be prejudiced already in Dorie's favor, though, having enjoyed her writing and food knowledge over the years. Just my two cents. [edited for screwy spelling]

The all spice was quite fresh. Recently purchased and used. I even used whole nutmeg and ground it myself. I don't think it was the allspice's fault. I think the recipe was a dud. The muffins were pretty but flavorless. Also: even though there was a 1/2 teaspoon in the topping, the recipe made a huge amount of topic. Way too much for the muffins so some of the allspice might have been "wasted" but I still should have tasted SOMETHING in the base muffin. ← Have you had any better luck with other recipes from the book?