pastrygirl

Great topic! I started playing with molded chocolates and got more comfortable tempering. I finally made croissants, found a good graham cracker recipe, and have made a lot more bread than before. A job change has put me in more of a management position, which I am definitely still learning how to do. I am also learning metric and how to adapt recipes to 2300 meters elevation.

Looks good. Next year, maybe something with kiwis. They make great green sorbet.

What is the shelf life of stollen? My GM gave me a recipe he would like me to make for 150 of our company's closest friends. I don't like stollen and have only made it at one bakery, nine years ago, so I am basically in the dark. This recipe has no eggs and not much sugar or alcohol, and I am worried about the stollens drying out and getting stale between baking and delivery. Also, we are at 7000 feet, and dry thin air is going to be a factor as well. So, how long should I hope for stollen to stay fresh? How can I extend the shelf life? thanks

Yes, commercial yeast. Devlin, if I can refresh the biga once, why can't I just keep refreshing it? Because the yeast would eventually exhaust itself after it got too diluted? The old dough method sounds easiest, I used to do that with my pizza dough, I was considering that too. Will it work for pumpernickel? I have a recipe from the previous PC that everybody loves that I need to keep. I generally avoid commitment, maybe that is why I'm apprehensive about sourdough and impatient with bread in general...nurturing it, getting to know it ...takes too much time, I just want to get something in the oven!

I'm a pastry chef more into plated desserts, but my new job requires baking lots of different breads and developing recipes for multiple locations. I have a couple of recipes that use a biga starter that are successful, but I'm concerned about consistency using the biga day 1 vs. day 3. I've been trying to get a sourdough starter going, but this morning I decided it wasn't happening and threw it away. My question is, can I just use the biga as a jumping-off point for sourdough and feed it? Can/should I add old biga to the fresh batch to enhance the flavor, or should I stick with making a fresh biga every 3 days? Making it fresh seems to work fine, I'm just looking for ways to make better bread. I do add yeast to the breads also, and although I would like to do a slow rise, space and educating my staff are issues, so I'm depending on the pre-fermented starter to add complexity. If I do get a sourdough starter going, is there any point in keeping both sourdough and biga starters, or is one enough? I'm inclined to just use one, unless there's a compelling reason to keep two cambros of fermenting goo in my reach-in. Thanks! Andrea