devlin

Thanks for the comments. The cake is a simple, nearly flourless almond cake from Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert. It offers some separate options for fancying it up a bit (baking with chopped almonds scattered on the bottom and the sides of the pan while baking, and serving with a variety of fruits or fruit purees, for example). Honestly, though, I love it plain, or with just a fine bit of sifted powdered sugar. Since I'm baking small ones to ship to friends and family for Christmas (in addition to some cookies and another small cake), I thought it would be nice to make them a little prettier by sifting the sugar on before I package it.

Not silly at all. Yes, I washed them first. Then the blackening. And so I washed them again. And then still had to repeat the whole process yet a third time. It just seemed to take more washings and hard rubbing than I'm used to, and so I worried that something might be going on I haven't seen before. Hm. Well, the recipe calls for both buttering the sides and parchment on the bottom, and so I did both.

I've just gotten some new cake pans, and when I buttered them, the butter turned black as I was buttering , reminding me of those cheap dime store rings from when I was a kid that left a black ring around your finger. Is this normal? Should I toss them?

Fabulous suggestion. I've just ordered some (although not the grout ).

I've got an almond cake I'll be mailing and would like to sprinkle some powdered sugar over it but am not sure how wrapping/mailing will affect the look of it. Should I just leave the powdered sugar off and send a packet along with it with instructions? Or is there a way to handle it that won't look godawful?

I bought a square baking stone that I love and was very reasonably priced. I'd looked around in hardware stores and the like but was never sure what would work, so in the end it was just easier to buy the darned thing. But about granite. We recently had a long conversation with a clerk at one of the big hardware stores about granite, how it would hold up under very changeable weather, freezing to hot, and he suggested it wasn't the best stone for that, noting it would crack or shatter or the like. So I suspect it may not be the best stone for oven use. On the other hand, one person's definition of "shatter" may be another person's definition of "burst."

I'm glad Jack broke down the water and flour values because although as I read it late last night (1 a.m. here) and thought it peculiar, I was too tired to figure it out. So, anyway, yes, I'd second that. And the overuse of culture as well. For the breads pictured above (the rosemary and the garlic loaves), I'm using bread flour from a local mill (which is actually shipped from up north but milled here), about 11% protein. For myself, I've had better results with it than anything else. I don't produce anything like the traditional French baguette, and I'm although I'm an advocate of the lovely open crumb (it's what I look for myself, generally), I find the flavor of the traditional baguette fairly flat and not particularly interesting, especially beyond a day. I've played around with them in a number of ways, different flours, varying degrees of hydration, but I continue to be disappointed with their flavor, ultimately. Great for sopping stuff up, or if you want a bread to slather butter on. But I prefer a bread I don't have to butter in order to experience great flavor. It's the first thing people want to do when they slice open my bread, and it's the first thing I tell them not to do. Don't butter it. It's a hard habit to break. Of course if they want butter after, that's fine, but at least taste the bread itself first. But after you've tried Jack's formula, which I'm thinking you'll be delighted with (it was Jack's formula that helped me over the hump in my own breads, and I've incorporated many of his methods in my own breads), you might also experiment with some barm methods. Dan Lepard has a formula in his book that's a great place to start, and I've got a durum loaf I've nearly developed to my satisfaction using a fairly mild lager barm. Nice open crumb, beautiful flavor. Looking forward to seeing how you get on.

Well as usual, Jackal will probably have better advice for Johnny than I, but I'll just ramble a little and see if it might help. First, take notes and be consistent with each bread you try. You'll never figure out what you're doing if you just sort of wing it with different flours and ingredients and the like. It's one of the most important things I did in the beginning, and it's still just as important to me today. The photo of your sourdough culture is gorgeous. It's hard to respond to your question very generically when you've provided at least three possible different formulas. One just above using either bread and ap flour, or bread and wheat flour, and another with only(?) rye. Wheat and rye flour will produce a denser dough, generally speaking. Given your formula just above (and taking into account that you suggested you'd like more flavor), I'd start it with a sponge the night before. And don't use warm water. Use cold water, either as cold as you can get it out of your tap or cool it with ice. Reinhart's ancient bread, for example, starts with water at a temp of 40 degrees farenheit. I use cold tap water, around 60 to 63 degrees generally. That's the first thing. And then your 5 hour (more or less) proof/rise. For me, that looks like a major problem if I understand it correctly. I would work the dough a bit using the stretch and fold method every hour rather than just let it sit, otherwise it'll never develop properly. It's something you have to play by ear, generally, deciding when it's risen sufficiently, and that takes practice and will depend on what type of dough you have (the flours, the water, any ancillary ingredients). And then cut and shape and rest and proof for however long it takes to proof what you have. Preheating the oven as hot as you can for at least an hour before. A stone. Those things will help. Frankly, fiddling around with steams and temps after it goes into the oven has turned out to be not as significant as I had thought it should be, given all the literature devoted to it. I work with a brick wood-fired oven, for example, and once the dough goes into the oven, the temperature is continually sort of nuanced by loading and reloading, and the steam aspect frankly has had very little influence on the rise and crumb of my breads. Another issue, instead of measuring with cups, I'd strongly advise you to get a scale and start weighing everything instead.

Nancy Silverton's book on sourdough includes a small discourse on how she handles her breads which is the "bashing" method noted here. And I've seen both her and another baker demonstrate the technique. You pick the dough up at one end and bring it down on the counter with a bang, fold it, and repeat a gazillion times. I tried that for awhile. For me? A total waste of time. I get far better results with the stretch and fold method, the barest handling of the dough. Also, my doughs are far wetter than most home bakers are used to, and I never add flour while rising and shaping. I use a bench scraper to handle the dough, and never ever add flour except on the couches.

Devlin, they look pretty amazing!! Excellent crumb. I remember, not that many years ago on one of the newsgroup bread threads, someone suggesting that breads like yours owed more to photo-shop than baking. If only they knew! Dan ← Thanks Dan! No kidding. Breads like mine come from working like a mule (or is that a slave -- I ferget ). A good camera helps, that's for sure. And decent lighting (and I did photo-shop a tiny couche thread off the top of the rosemary because it just detracted from the bread, but beyond that, it's just straight photo). But yes, those breads are the result of lots and lots of time and care and learning and attention. And the feedback from happy customers is testament to that and makes me glad. Are you ever planning to get to this part of the world?

Isn't gianduja hazelnut, not almond? ← This from Wikipedia: Gianduja (or, more commonly, gianduia) is a sweet chocolate containing about 50% hazelnut and almond paste. It takes its name from Gianduja, a Carnival and marionette character who represents the archetypal Piedmontese, the Italian region where hazelnut confectionery is common. Purdy's Hedgehogs is an example of Gianduja. The chocolate hazelnut gelato of the same name originates in Switzerland, as does Gianduia fondue. A related product from Ferrero is Nutella, which was originally called Pasta Gianduja, as a marketing ploy to appeal to children. Gianduiotti, a speciality of Turin, are chocolates shaped like an upturned boat, again made with a mixture of cocoa and hazelnut paste.

I believe that before the advent of commercial yeast, using beer was a fairly common way to rise bread. I don't know that it could properly be called "sourdough," as sourdough suggests, I think, a culture that can be maintained for years and years (although I couldn't tell from your message whether that's what you're doing with your beer breads or not). I use both sourdough and a beer barm method for some of my breads.

That's a great question. Alternatively, could one use a blend of both nutella and almond paste maybe?

Yes, I do all my breads using the stretch and fold method. Generally a four hour rise, folding every hour, then cutting, shaping and proofing. A rosemary loaf.... Garlic.... Both have a bit of olive oil as well.

Sacrilege! We always make a bigger turkey than we need just for the leftovers. Good heavens! Seriously. One of the things I love about Thanksgiving is all the leftover stuff you get to pick at and make sandwiches and fried turkeyandstuffingandpotatoandgravymash stuff out of for as long as you can eke it out, portion by portion. Clearly people who don't enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers are very poorly educated. We've been invited to friends' house tomorrow for dinner, but we plan to make our own traditional thanksgiving dinner soon just to enjoy the leftovers.

Whenever I bring any Callebaut into the house, I eat it before I can get around to baking. I'm not a real fan of Ghirardelli, myself. Any opinions about Lindt? There's been a huge influx of all varieties of Lindt chocolates around the grocery stores here lately.

Okay....

I tend to think of Honeycrisp and Pink Lady (to a lesser extend, Fuji and Gala) as apples for eating out of hand. Honeycrisp has amazing sweetness and crispness - I might substitute it for a McIntosh/Golden Delicious combination, but would otherwise think it too sweet/pricey/subtle for baking. Same for Pink Lady with that delightful subtle cinnamon flavor. Of course, I may be wrong - has anyone found that apples with subtle nuances bake well and retain their qualities? ← Well, that's why I use a blend of apples. For me, granny smiths alone are too tart and sort of one note. And so I use other apples, such as pink lady and honey crisp or jonathans and so forth together with granny smiths.

I try to use a combination of apples in desserts that call for apples. Granny Smith for the really tart aspect, and then honey crisp, pink lady (those are both super good, crisp eating apples as well), and jonathan or jonagold. I've heard wonderful things about pippins, but we don't get them here.

Not to guilt trip you or anything, but if you're baking pies only once or twice a year (thanksgiving, etc), you're probably not going to be completely happy with the results. You may need to practice pie making a bit more to be any good at it, especially the crust aspect. Okay, that out of the way, you could try another sort of pastry dough which might help (a sweet, cookie dough crust might work better). And I'd reiterate the questions Ruth asked. It's important not to stretch the dough as you fill the pan. I've had the same problems, and I solved them after getting a fair amount of practice (more than once or twice a year), and by freezing the pie crust for at least an hour and playing around with pie weights/beans techniques. I use foil and beans, making sure the pan is filled a little over the top, the foil higher than the sides of the pan, and the beans pushed all the way up to the top and even a little higher. The foil, standing straight up around the edges will keep the beans in. You might try blind baking a little hotter than many recipes call for and then lower the heat to the recipe requirement and baking another 5 or 10 minutes after you take the beans out, pricking the bottom crust.

um, what's a "wire guided thingie"?... ← Thanks. That's sort of what I thought you must mean, although I've never used one and so I wasn't sure. And on that note, how reliably does it work? And how exactly DO you work it? I'm assuming it must be better than a long knife.

um, what's a "wire guided thingie"?...

yes, filled with whipped ceam, from rlb's templates in the cake bible. offscreen is a pitcher of chocolate rum sauce. i think chestnuts & rum is the most divine combination since pineapple & kirsch. ← Can you provide a little tutorial on your bavarian? I've tried it only once in my life and wasn't particularly pleased with my results. Not sure what I did wrong.

Oh thank goodness. I could only find internet resources that said store for up to 3 months in the refrigerator and I've got 7 pounds of the stuff. I figured if you could store almonds in the freezer, you could store almond paste in the freezer as well.

I just bought some almond paste (probably too much almond paste), and I know I won't use it all right away. How and where and for how long can I store almond paste? Can I freeze it?