Culinary Duplicity

[Robert Schonfeld]

So it's much more difficult to do croissant well than puff well.

Thanks for giving me the reason I needed to add croissants to my list, Steve. Hopefully, some experience with the behavior of yeast will give me a leg up. I know that Vol II of Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" has detailed instructions.

[Fat Guy]

How about the role of machines in all this? It seems clear to me that industrial dough-mixers (for bread) and those funky looking sheeting things (for croissants) produce a product that no home baker can fully compete with. Is use of machines duplicitous? I know some who would -- amazingly -- say yes.

[Steve Klc]

Shaw--in your example, volume production aside, whether you make it by hand or by machine there's no reason to think the product wouldn't come out equal.

I do think you have to conduct this on two tracks--home and pro--but both parallel each other and to a certain extent, I think what we might say about one could apply to the other. Doughs in Kitchenaids come out just fine and are mechanically aided, right? I've made certain doughs in Cuisinarts--and you just have to figure out how to compensate for the high heat by pulsing, since there is no slow speed--there's science inherent in each machine's process--and how to use that to your advantage should you choose to. (Indeed--machines require you to ratchet up your knowledge base--because you have to figure out what you stand to gain by using a machine and how that "gain" fits into the grand scheme of things.) Those sheeters are in many pro kitchens not just those of wholesale commercial bakeries--and in any event, I just think of them as a tool--one tool among many--to make more efficient the rolling out process but even sheeters still require skill and dexterity to use--the user has to adapt to and learn the nuances of the machine in order to use it well. I could roll out a dough or rolled fondant on a sheeter if I wanted to but I can get it just as thin, just as consistent when I roll it out by hand with a pin.

What's the difference between any of these machines (tools) used in foodservice from the home based versions--say an ice cream freezer--there's a Krups for $50 or a Pacojet or batch freezer for $3,000? Would anyone seriously say either of these is duplicitous and prefer me to get out the salt, shovel some snow out of the cave and hand crank? No, it's another Luddite red herring. Sheeters, proof boxes, microwaves, Cuisinarts, immersion blenders, iSi Profi whippers charged with compressed gas, silpats and non-stick silicone sheets or molds, all of these are tools. No different from a knife or a pot. They have nothing inherently to do with taste, palate, honesty--and they all require an awareness, a skill set, a methodical approach, as does using and cooking with a knife.

What's always curious is the misplaced emphasis of the sort a John Thorne would wax poetic about--oh, the evils of machines. Sorry, machines are tools, optional tools at that. A knife is a tool, an oven is a tool. The only evil is inherent in the culinary Luddites who don't realize time and technology march on--and in those culinary authorities who feel machines are a substitute for knowledge. Machines aren't. In the kitchen they are tools to be embraced and bent to your will.

A question--is it duplicitous for hotels to buy frozen croissants--the ubiquitous kind I talked about above--then thaw, proof and bake them off--and tell their customers that they were "fresh baked" or baked off this morning?

[Fat Guy]

With regard to the specific examples, I have no direct experience worth arguing for but I have been told by 1) a serious baker that you can never get that last bit of competition-quality air-pocketed crumb without a certain wattage of electric mixer (basically, a Hobart) that is not currently available to the home cook in the form of a Cuisinart or KitchenAid, and 2) by my friend who used to do the croissants at a place that I thought made good croissants that the mechanical sheeter (used properly of course) does a better job than any human can do by hand (more even, more consistent).

With regard to the general question, of course I couldn't agree with you more.

With regard to advertising frozen as fresh-baked, certainly this is what supermarkets with bakery sections do all the time. I'm not sure it's right, but it's commonplace.

[Robert Schonfeld]

The big holes in bread come from a dough with a very high hydration, and, to a lesser extent, from flour with a lower protein content. To the degree that a powerful mixer can develop the gluten structure in a large batch of very wet dough, which is very difficult to manage by hand, this would be a big help. Also, from a production standpoint, there is no way to work by hand enough dough to produce bread in quantity on a timely basis, whether the dough is wet or not. The really tall loaves - five or six inches or more - that also have big holes are hyperdeveloped yeast doughs which wouldn't fall under anyone's definition of competition quality.

However, I'm still not convinced that the home baker doesn't have a shot at really holey loaves made a couple at a time, especially sourdough. (I think the yeasted one mentioned above is a lot easier, but since it doesn't interest me as a project, I'm not likely to attempt it.) I've come very close with sourdough, and I know you're talking about the last little bit of difference, but I still think I can do it, given enough experiments with the temperature variable in particular. Stay tuned.

Equally important to the home baker's efforts vis a vis the large scale producer is a massive preheated surface to give the indispensible oven spring. I know of some home bakers who have installed small deck ovens in their kitchens.

"Freshly baked" is a phrase designed to be used by dissemblers, like "all natural" or "no fat".