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Please tell me that charging diners for bread will be a short-lived trend. Have any other cities (besides Kansas City) been experiencing this phenomenon? I admit, encounters have been limited to two restaurants.

I bought a delicious "Healthy Breakfast Bread" from The Bread Lady in Elberta, Alabama when I was in Perdido Key over the weekend. The ingredients are: whole wheat flour, unbleached bread flour, water, skim milk, honey, dried cranberries, dried apples, walnuts, soybean oil, oatmeal, milled flaxseed, salt, cinnamon, yeast. Delicious, not too sweet, with a nice, tight crumb. Any ideas about a recipe for this? I've googled until I'm blue in the face (finger?)

Hey all, Working on improving my bread skills. I'm now thinking of upgrading my equipment list to hopefully make things a bit better. I realize that you can make pretty great bread at home with minimal tools, but I was wondering what everyone's opinions were of the required equipment. Obviously we can assume an oven, etc. But aside from that, what are the top needs? For example, do I really need a special loaf pan for baguettes? Thanks.

Here on this other topic, sourdough breads are discussed in wonderful detail, with tons and tons of great info. I've posted a number of pix of 100% sourdough breads, along with tales of failures, and some successes along the way. My "mother" is quite healthy, and just takes one feeding to get it all hot and bothered. And now I have a confession about my latest bread... , the one pictured above. I actually used a tiny amount of SAF instant yeast - like 1/4 tsp. added when I first mixed the starter, flour and water, and prior to autolyse. Dough had about a two hour rise (folded after an hour) after kneading, followed by the long overnight proof in the refrigerator. And then baked in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven. And it's one of the best loafs I've managed to produce...nice rise, decent, if not great, holes, light in the hand, great crust, creamy delicious crumb, delicious toasted or not. I've made some pizza dough using the same tactic (sourdough + a tiny bit of yeast) and my wife thought it was the best one I've yet made. Many commercial bakeries (at least according to the labels on the breads) seem to use a bit of yeast in their sourdough formulas. And it just seems to make my breads so much better and more successful to bake. So, is this heresy amongst sourdough aficianados? Are there any breads you bake with both sour and yeast? And, what the hell is going on with all those bacteria and yeasts and things when you use both?

All the delayed fermentation techniques (retarding dough, preferments, etc.) seem to be about giving the enzymes time to develop flavors before the yeast finishes fermenting. So is there any reason at all to add the yeast before the dough ages? One kind of preferment is called a soaker; it's just flour and water set aside to age before being incorporated with the yeast and the rest of the dough. Why can't the whole recipe be a soaker? You could do it like this: roughly mix up the flour, water, and salt, and let it sit for as long as you want. A day. A week. Whatever you can get away with before any bad creepy crawlies have their way with it. Then mix in the yeast and work it until you have adequate gluten development. At this point you should be able to proof at high temperatures and get it over with in a hurry, because you're not waiting for the enzymes to break down the starch. They've already had plenty of time. I'm not sure what the best way would be to incorporate yeast into dough that's already partially formed. One possibility would be to make the initial mixture with just 80% of the dough's water. The yeast could be disolved in the remaining water and mixed in. The advantage over regular delayed fermentation (like Reinhart's Pain a L'ancienne or the 5-minute method or the no-kneed method) would be that you're not forced to precisely manage the time and temperature of the dough. There's no race between the enzymes and the yeast. Is this already a known method? Or a method known to not work? Thoughts?

I fried up some walleye last night and as a breading I used the new jalapeno cheddar cheetos. I have heard of captain crunch, and every other cereal being used, but I wanted something different. It turned out pretty good, but the flavor was not as pronounced as I expected. What else have you used or want to try??

I would be very grateful if anyone can help, I shoot a few deer a year, where can I find (or can you post) pictures of the glands, so I can try these beautiful morsels again. I have been out to a local restaurant and tried open ravioli with chicken and sweetbreads with portabello mushrooms with a truffle velute sauce....... superb.

I've been baking a couple loaves of whole wheat today, and after I put them in the oven it occurred to me that baking and brewing (I do both) have a lot in common. Both use different types of grains for different flavors, both rely an enzymes to convert complex carbohydrate to simpler sugars, and both include fermentation. So I got to thinking, what other ways do they intersect? What ideas can I take from one process and apply it to another? The first thought I had was using heat to convert complex sugars into simpler ones in baking. This is required in brewing, as the sugars contained in barley aren't wholly digestible by yeast. So I've been contemplating experimenting with holding pastes at different temperatures to try and control the enzymatic process. It probably won't work, but might be worth a little exploration. While thinking about that, I realized that perhaps a better experiment would be to use specialty grains directly in whole wheat bread. Specialty grains in brewing, for those who are unfamiliar, are grains that are used to control the color and flavor of the brew. For example, barley is roasted at high temperatures to create black malt, chocolate malt, black patent, and many others which contribute highly to the flavor of stouts. Same with amber malts, crystal malt, peat malt (used in Scotch whiskey), and many others. So my question is this: has anyone tried, say, an oatmeal stout wholegrain bread? Not actually using beer in the bread, but the grain profile used to make a stout. I have a nice grain mill, so I should be able to process any grain. Any experience, thoughts, or gotchas? Cheers, and happy saturday!

I'll confess. I'm new to bread baking, but finally have some starter, that "barmed" is rising like crazy, and starting to make my bread more sour. But, my bread is denser than I'd like, and I have a bunch of questions (all related to non-loaf pan loaves): Shaping. If I flour the counter, I can't seem to get as much tension. Quite frankly, my shaping sucks, and I can't seem to get the tension that is necessary for a Great Loaf. Slashing. When do I do this? If I slash right before I put the loaf in the oven, I don't seem to get the bloom I need. Couching. What's the best way to keep a wet dough from spreading too much? Today, the loaves are couching on a floured flour sack dish cloth, kept in check with bricks. Or, do I even care if the loaves spread? It's helpful it the bread is taller so the kids can get their toast out of the toaster... What's the best way to transfer these loaves so they don't wrinkle? Plea for help, please! How do I know when they are over-proofed?

Did anyone else happen to catch this on Sundance? If not, definitely set your DVR because there is no DVD release date as of yet. The theme of the documentary is European industrial food production and hi-tech farming. The most interesting thing about it, besides the machinery and sheer scope of some of the production, is that there is no narrator, no music...nothing. The only "soundtrack" is the sound of machinery, animals and workers. It is shot in such a way that once I started I couldn't stop watching all of the "stories" unfold. It includes apples, sunflowers, pigs, milk, salt.....and even though I'm a total sucker for shows like "How It's Made" I think the appeal for food-minded individuals is obvious. It leaves you to draw your own conclusions on the beauty and terror of factory farming. Some parts are easier to watch than others, but even the scene with the pork production (from live piggies all the way to parts) was so fascinating to see on that scale that it was easy to get past the gore aspect. The "zipper" machine that opens up the animals is one of the scariest pieces of equipment I can possibly imagine. Then there are scenes like the one with workers on their knees processing fresh lettuce, and you wonder....how is the lettuce getting into that tiny room, and why are they sitting so low? Then the camera pans back and you see the giant machine, and all of the workers are actually crawling across the ground in a little canopy on the front of the tractor picking the live lettuce...at night. Anyway, definitely watch this if you get a chance. I would really like to hear some other opinions.

The "Double Dipping" thread got me thinking of this. Occasionally I'll buy buns or bagels from the bulk section of supermarkets. One store in particular has aggressive signs everywhere..."Use the Tongs". But here's the thing. If I use the tongs, I'm not going to be contaminating the buns, but I'm damned if I'm going to use tongs that someone else has been handling, therebye contaminating my own hands....particularly when the tongs usually look really filthy. This to me is similar to the mania for foodservice staff wearing gloves. It gives a false perception of cleanliness, even if they keep the gloves on for hours. I just reach in and grab my own damned buns. I don't fondle every bun in the bin....I just snatch the ones I want with my hands, thinking it's the lesser of two evils. No doubt I'll be marched out of the store one day, but I've been ever so tempted to take a swab from those tongs, and write me a little expose......

Since I've been focusing on sourdough breads, rustic breads, no-knead breads, pizza, focaccia, etc. for oh, these past 12 months or so, I decided to give a simple whole-wheat loaf a try. I modified slightly the whole wheat bread recipe in the King Arthur Flour All-Purpose Baking Book, substituting 1/3 a/p flour for the whole wheat called for in the recipe. Also, instead of honey, molasses or maple syrup, I used agave nectar, since I had just bought a bottle of the stuff. Kneaded in my KA stand mixer (I really wanted to make this easy - I usually knead by hand), risen once for 2 hours, shaped and risen again in the loaf pan for 1 hour, here's what I ended up with. A tasty, wheaty, damn easy, even a little bit healthy loaf of bread that I can easily slice up for toast in the morning or to make a sandwich with at lunch. No biga. No poolish. No starter. No spritzing or pouring boiling water into my oven. No overnight stuff. No almost burning the shit out of my hands and arms dumping a bread into a 450 degree cast iron dutch oven. Will not and can't replace all the above, but it makes me happy. Show us your loafs.

This book is by Michel Susas and will be published in February 2008. I don't know Mr. Susas. Does anyone else? Thanks, Woods

Anyone have this book? I read about it over on the Cook's Illustrated Boards. I started a batch of the dough this afternoon based on information I gleaned from the boards and some articles I googled. Here is a link to the author's website.

So I know I'm one week late, but since I noticed the evident lack of topics on the epiphany's goodnesses, I thought I would ask you a few questions... Do you guys make anything special for the epiphany? At my house, we make both galette des rois and couronne briochée. Do you have a favourite? The galette des rois consists in a rich almond and pastry cream filling called frangipane enclosed into two sheets of puff pastry. The couronne briochée, more popular in the south of France is more like a simple brioche, shaped into a couronne [wreath] and decorated with coarse sugar and candied fruits.

After spotting this week's Metropoli review of Pan.Cake http://www.elmundo.es/metropoli/2008/01/03...1199353350.html a relatively new bakery/pastry shop on Castelló, I stopped by and met Sergi and tried his creations. Good bread is much needed in Madrid and Im happy to say, in my opinion, Sergi is a 1st class chef baker making the real real stuff along with delicious croissants and brioches... on top of it, he's using organic flour. I still have to try out Maria's pastries and chocolates, but Im sure I won't be disappointed.

My friend and I are making Chelsea Buns, using an old recipe (Purity Cookbook) http://www.recipelink.com/mf/1/6866. This is the recipe my mom used when we were kids. My friend has a breadmaker. Can we convert the recipe, so the dough can be made in a breadmaker?

I went through my first hurdle in understanding the various types of Roti(Bread served Indian food. The Indian vegetarian is very healthy and the range of bean products is abundance. Now I would like to understand some of the popular dishes that goes well with the following roti: Chapati/Dosa(Thosai)/Puram Poli/Roomali roti/Pakora Pakoda/Naan/Poori/Bhatura. Let me know if I miss out any? Namaste

I picked up a cookbook named "The Best Bread Ever." I was curious -- can it REALLY be the BEST?? Julia Child's french bread, Mark Patent's whole wheat bread, the Fleishmann's Yeast honey wheat bread -- those are really good. How does this book live up to it's title? The bread is yummy (isn't just about all homemade bread?), and has that crisp crust and fluffy inside that I love. That is really great considering I use a buillt-in oven from 1968. The book emphasizes precise measurement of the flour, careful monitoring of temperatures (water, flour, dough), uses the food processor to quickly knead the bread, and s-l-o-w, cool rising. There's no sugar in the basic bread recipe, so the yeast is gently awakened by the interaction with the flour. The author carefully explains each process. So what makes this book great? The combination of techniques plus simplicity -- back to the basics of breadmaking. Is it the BEST? Well that is up to each reader and cook. Post Script: My daughter, a 20 year old total bread novice liked the loaf I made so much that she decided to make another the next night. She thought the cookbook was great.

I am in the process of moving into a baker's position at my new job. At my old job, we shaped all of the bread by hand. The new job involves much higher volume - and the chef wants small rolls. The current baker (who is retiring tomorrow) uses an electric dough divider/rounder (Dutchess Model JN) to shape the bread. How will shaping small rolls using the machine (which I believe is set to the 1 oz setting) - affect the qualities of the bread that you look for when baking an artisan loaf? I have a few recipes that I want to eventually try, that when I have made in loaf form, result in a nice, open crumb. Should I be expecting the little rolls to have similar qualities, albeit on a smaller scale, as the loaves would, or should I expect to compromise on the crumb a little and just make sure the taste is there? On a related note: with the recipes that I am being taught now- as the rolls come out of the machine, the ones on the outside of the divider need to be shaped again by hand - they are coming out not completely rounded. Should this be happening or should the rolls be coming out fully rounded and equal? Thanks for any input!

There has been a tremendous amount of discussion lately, on the "Minimalist no-knead bread technique" topic and related topics, about simplified bread recipes that require little effort (and no kneading) and produce excellent results. Fundamentally, the no-knead system works because it lets the microorganisms do the work on their own schedule. All you need is patience and these little animals will do everything for you. There's one problem with these methods, though: they require a day of advance planning. It's 24 hours or so from flour to bread. Back when I started law school, stress was a constant companion. The first year of law school is pretty intense. So I took up bread baking as a means of relaxing. I never became a particularly good baker. But my study group grew accustomed to having, for example, fresh-baked raisin bread in the morning. Sometimes I made bread the old-fashioned way, but other times I had less time and needed a shortcut. That year, 1991, there was a book published titled "Bread In Half The Time," by Linda West Eckhardt and Diana Collingwood Butts. The book outlined an ingenious method of getting from flour to bread in 90 minutes, by using the food processor and microwave (the subtitle of the book is "Use Your Microwave and Food Processor to Make Real Yeast Bread in 90 Minutes"). Specifically, you use the food processor to knead the dough, and you use gentle doses of microwave heat to accelerate rising. The method works exceptionally well. From 1991 until 1994 -- at which time my bread-baking career was brutally terminated by my employment at a law firm -- I used the method at least a hundred times. You don't get the flavors of long-risen dough that has been developing overnight, but in all other respects you get really good bread. Here's the basic approach, which works for just about any dough recipe: 1. You add your dry ingredients to a food processor bowl, pulse to combine, then run the processor and add 120 degree F liquid until the dough forms a ball that cleans the sides of the bowl. 2. Once the dough forms that ball, let the food processor run for an additional 60 seconds to knead the dough. 3. Take out the dough ball, remove the processor blade, shape the dough into a doughnut shape and put it back in the processor bowl (the processor bowl has a hole in the middle so you need to doughnut shape to accommodate that). 4. Stick the processor bowl, with the dough, in the microwave oven, along with a small glass of water in the back of the microwave. Heat on the lowest setting (after experimentation you may go up a notch, but you need a very low setting) for 3 minutes. Rest for 3 minutes. Heat on low for another 3 minutes. Rest for 6 minutes. So that's 15 minutes total. The dough should have doubled in bulk, at least. If it didn't, you needed to use a higher setting, so give it a little more time this time around and use a higher setting next time. 5. Take the dough out, punch it down and form your loaf. 6. Now you have two choices: 6a. You can use a microwave-safe vessel, such as a clay loaf pan. Put your dough in there and repeat the 3-3-3-6 deal in the microwave. Then bake. 6b. If you're going to bake on a metal sheet or in a metal loaf pan, let the dough rise in a warm place. This will take a little longer than 3-3-3-6, but it will double in bulk pretty quickly. Then bake. That's it. The book has pages and pages of more subtle detail, but you can make it work with just the instructions I've given you here. Again, I've done it a hundred times. It really works.

About a decade ago a friend demonstrated the following method for restoring day-old bread in the oven or toaster oven: - Turn on faucet - Run bread under faucet - Toast on high temperature A couple of caveats: - You have to run the bread under the faucet ever so briefly. You just want to swipe it, really. The idea is just to get the exterior of the bread a little bit damp. You don't want to soak it. For the timid, this can also be accomplished by wetting your hands and feeling up the bread -- you may have to repeat a couple of times to get the whole surface damp, though, and the faucet method is faster. - The true beauty of this method is what it does to the crust -- it gives it a fresh-baked flavor and texture. So this only works brilliantly with bread where most or all of the exposed surface is crust. So, like, a roll or a baguette or a piece thereof. It doesn't work as well with slices of bread -- though it does work. Anybody else in the bread-wetting camp?

I am BEGGING for the recipe. I had it when I was younger. Very moist and used those jarred, bright red, spiced apple rings. I recall the mushed up apple rings were almost like a ribbon through the bread????

Soaked in Milk, par boiled a huge amount.. Have close to 3 pounds left over.. I was wondering if I can freeze the rest or do I have to eat all this in the next day or so..

I thought that there may have been a thread concerning this book but I couldn't find one. Do any of you have it and if so how well do the recipes work? It reads as if it is well researched but I haven't had a chance to make any of the wonderful sounding breads.