Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 22:48:37 -0600 (MDT) -------------- BEGIN bread-bakers.v103.n041 -------------- 001 - FREDERICKA COHEN Subject: mysterious pan Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 05:10:46 -0700 (PDT) Thank you for the laugh! Using a lidded half-moon shaped pan 14 inches long with closed ends for your suggested purpose boggles the mind. It certainly proves this site is really ready by the subscribers. It was kind of you to comment. I have discovered it is for an ice cream bombe. However, it did bring me some excellent bread recipes so it was great value for my 45 cents. Thanks again, Fredericka --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.2 --------------- From: FREDERICKA COHEN Subject: plastic trays Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 05:23:29 -0700 (PDT) Boy, this is my week to really learn! Your suggestion about the plastic trays is one of those "it's so simple, it's brilliant!" While I also have a small kitchen, my problem is HEIGHT of work area. Kitchen counter is 36 inches high. That makes it awkward for me because I am 5' 2" and only have 40% use of my left shoulder. By putting something like the tray on the kitchen table which is 30 inches high, I can reach and move more easily. I can also approach it from more than just the front! My tip for you is my "proofing box." It is a 15 - 16 qt.plastic container...a $3.00 Meijer special. I perfectly covers two pan breads or 12 - 14 inch shaped loaf. Thanks again, Fredericka --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.3 --------------- From: "Mike Avery" Subject: Re: scales - for Raymond Kenyon Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 08:26:16 -0600 Nifcon@aol.com wrote: >Electronic digital scales have many useful features but I would still >recommend that you at least consider an old fashioned beam balance, the >type that uses weights. > >They are not hi-tec and they don't have a tare capability but they are >accurate, robust and there is basically, nothing to go wrong. They most certainly DO have a tare function. You start with your scales in balance. If you use a different container to measure, you still balance the scales. They are in tare. Then you measure a pound of flour. You put a 1 pound weight on one side of the balance, and add flour until the scales are again balanced. You have achieved tare. Now you want to measure a pound of butter. You put another pound weight on one side of the balance. Now you add a pound of butter to the measuring container. You have again achieved tare. You now want to measure a pound of sugar. You put another one pound weight on the balance pan and add sugar until you have balance. And you have again achieved tare. No problem.... tare has been around a long, long time. Mike -- Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.4 --------------- From: Roxanne Rieske Subject: Linda: Comment about your bread recipe (Re: To Mike about Windopanes) Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 08:53:08 -0600 I would recommend either of 2 things for your recipe to help with texture and lift: 1) Use 75% whole grain flour and 25% bread flour -or- 2) Take half of the flour that you grind to use for this recipe and sift it to remove the bran. This will give you what's called "clear" or "patent" flour and is of the same (or possibly higher) grade as high gluten flour. Bread made with 100% whole grain flours will always be chewy and the texture will be rough unless you cut it with a "regular" type of flour. Roxanne Rieske --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.5 --------------- From: Maggie Glezer Subject: New Classes with Maggie Glezer Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 11:18:50 -0400 Hi Reggie and Jeff, I wanted to let everyone know that I will be teaching October 17 and 18th at the King Arthur Baking Center in Norwich, Vermont. Both classes will feature recipes and techniques that I have researched for my upcoming (autumn 2004) book on hallah and other Jewish breads. Friday night will feature a demonstration of the art of shaping celebration breads, featuring a slew of shaping techniques from Azerbaijan to Europe to Morocco. On Saturday students will work with me in a hands-on class in King Arthur's superbly equipped center making a wide assortment of flatbreads from all over the Middle East. Theses classes are always a ton of fun, with advanced students coming away with loads of new tricks and recipes to add to their repertoire, and beginning students getting off to a solid start. Please see King Arthur's website, www.kingarthurflour.com, for more details. Hope to see you there! Maggie Glezer --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.6 --------------- From: "Mike Avery" Subject: Re: To Mike about the Windowpane advice -- Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:32:33 -0600 lfc@juno.com wrote: >Thanks so much for the advice. I purchased a used copy of Breads from >Laurel's Kitchen about a month ago and I WILL use her Loaf for Learning >recipe, as you suggested. I am anxious to improve my loaves. Cool... it's a very good book. >You mentioned "I have four probable reasons you can't produce a >windowpane. 1. Low quality flour. Try another, less coarse, flour." > >Question: I grind my own flour and it is a little coarse. I love the >flour and my mill doesn't grind any finer. Would that mean that it would >be impossible to get it kneaded well enough for 'windowpanes'? As for the >flour amount and kneading time. I let it remain a little sticky and don't >add more flour than a sprinkle on my work surface. I knead in my >kitchenade for 6 or 8 minutes and then by hand for another 10 minutes for >a 2-loaf recipe. Any other suggestions? I have been getting tasty >loaves, but wish they would be a little softer. It's not a matter of impossible, just more difficult. On my sourdough home page, I suggest that people start easy. If they've never baked, I suggest they use yeast until they get the hang of baking, and then move into sourdough. Similarly, here I'd suggest going to the grocery store and getting a sack of commercial whole wheat flour. Both Wheat Montana's Prairie Gold and Hungarian High Altitude Whole Wheat flour work very well. Play with them, then move back to using your regular home ground flour. The mill you use can have a major impact on your results. For some time I used a KitchenAid grainmill attachment. And it made very coarse flour. I switched to a WhisperMill and the difference is night and day. The flour is much finer, and the loaves rise much better. So, how yougrind the grain does make a big difference. >My recipe is: > >2 1/2 cups milk >1/2 stick butter >2 T agave (or honey) > >Microwave until melted and warm. Pour in mixing bowl. >Add: >3 cups whole wheat flour >3 1/2 tsp. Yeast >1/2 cup vital wheat gluten (don't try it without it)] > >Mix and let it proof the yeast for 5 or 10 minutes >Add: >1 egg >1 1/2 tsp salt >more flour 1/2 cup at a time until it cleans the bowl and is just a little >sticky, but not gooey. > >I knead 6 to 8 min. in Kitchenaid, then at least 10 minutes by hand until >smooth and feels good. > >Place in covered bowl to rise until at least doubled in bulk. Gently >deflate, reshape into a ball, cover to rise again. Divide in two and shape >into loaves. Place in greased bread pans and cover. Let rise double or >just over the edge of the pan. Spray top with oil. Bake at 350 F until >brown on bottom. > >Thanks for any suggestions any of you may have. I just love reading what >ya'll share and trying it all out. I usually make simpler breads. A common problem is adding oil too soon. It can interfere with the gluten development process in kneading. If you hold back the oil or butter - which would include the butter and the egg, and just knead the dough, and then add the butter for the last few minutes of kneading, it will help give you a lighter loaf. Personally, I consider adding wheat gluten to be a crutch. I'd rather see you learn how to bake without it. Whole wheat flour has more protein, more gluten, than white flour. Handle the dough right and you don't need to add gluten. The other common error is too much flour kneaded in. The amounts you list don't look excessive. Good luck, Mike -- Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.7 --------------- From: " Sonia Martinez & Anthony Mathis" Subject: Bishop Bread for Pat Minzes Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 06:15:52 -1000 RE: the "Nut Lady" in the Mount Pleasant, Iowa exhibition: >She is looking for a recipe that included yeast. She called it Bishop's >bread. I've found some recipes, but none that looked right. Anyone have >an idea??? Aloha Pat, I attended a cookbookers convention last year in DeWitt, Iowa. While there we ate at a restaurant called The Shed in a nearby town and one of their items was a Bishop's Bread. We were not lucky enough to merit getting the recipe from them, but several members of the group googled for info and found several recipes. Apparently, it is quite popular in Iowa. These recipes are the two that we found were the closest to the bread we tasted at The Shed. Hope This is what the "Nut Lady" is looking for! Sonia In coolish East Hawaii TWO RECIPES: Bishop's Bread Source: http://www.foodfunandfacts.com/bishopsbread.htm Ingredients: 1/2 cup shortening 2 cups brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 1/2 cups flour (unbleached) 1 egg, beaten 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon cinnamon 3/4 cup sour milk 1/2 teaspoon baking soda Mix the flour, sugar, salt and shortening in a large bowl. (Set aside 3/4 cup of this mixture to use for the topping.) To the bowl, add the beaten egg, baking powder, cinnamon, sour milk and baking soda. Beat with a wooden spoon until the batter is smooth. Pour into two 7 inch square greased cake pans. Take the 3/4 cup of crumbs you set aside and place on top of the mixture. You may add some chopped walnuts and more cinnamon on top if you wish. Bake in a 375 F degree oven for 25-30 minutes. This makes a thin loaf only about 1 inch thick, so do not test until near the end of baking time. ******************************* Bishop Bread Source: Readers Digest Down Home Cooking, The New Healthier Way c1994 2 c all purpose flour 1 1/2 tsp each baking powder and ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp each salt, baking soda, and ground nutmeg 1 1/2 c each chopped mixed candied fruits and walnuts 1/4 c unsalted butter or margarine, at room temp 2/3 c granulated sugar 1/3 c firmly packed light brown sugar 2 large eggs 2 large egg whites 3/4 c low fat buttermilk 1 1/2 T grated orange rind 1 T grated lemon rind 1 T vanilla extract Prep time: 40 min./ Cooking time: 1 Hr./ Cooling time: 5 min. 1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pan. Into a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, and nutmeg. Add the fruits and nuts; toss. 2. In a medium size bowl, with an electric mixer set on high, beat the butter and 2 sugars on high until light and flffy. Beat in the eggs and egg whites, the buttermilk, the orange and lemon rinds, and the vanilla. Add all at once to the flour mixture, stirring until well combined. 3. Spoon the batter into the pan and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the bread in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes before removing. This bread freezes especially well. Makes one 9 inch loaf. --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.8 --------------- From: Brown_D@kids.wustl.edu Subject: Substituting whole-wheat flour, in focaccia and otherwise Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 18:57:29 -0500 Foccaccia is a particularly good place to sub whole wheat for white flour because you're not using a loaf pan and getting depressed if the whole wheat loaf doesn't rise quite as high.....that's a big part of the reason why I love making flatbreads of all kinds, because they're more forgiving of my mistakes....although the more times I read and reread Peter Reinhart's books, the fewer mistakes I make! You'll find lots of suggestions out there for converting white flour recipes to whole wheat. I routinely do the following: --substitute whole wheat flour for white flour weight-for-weight; --add 10-15% additional liquid: usually I add the amount called for in the recipe, mix briefly, then check the hydration before adding a little more water; --give the whole wheat flour a little more time to hydrate between the initial mixing and serious kneading; --don't worry about the windowpane test, but rely on how supple and soft the dough feels; --and if I'm trying for the very lightest bread, I'll add 1-2T gluten flour per 500g/1 lb/3C flour. Diane Brown in St. Louis --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.9 --------------- From: Brown_D@kids.wustl.edu Subject: factors affecting degrees of sourness in sourdoughs Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 19:12:20 -0500 I found the discussion of factors affecting sourness in sourdoughs (by Mike Avery in bread-bakers.v103.n039.5) to be quite interesting. It makes sense to me that by cooling the rise you'd favor one type of bacterial process over another, but I was surprised by two points: thick=sour, thin=mild. Most of the sourdough recipes I've read call for thin, pancake-batter-type starters for quite sour San Francisco or Alaska sourdoughs, and thick, doughy starters for mild, rustic european levain-type breads. Is the thick/thin issue mostpertinent for the starter's texture while being fed/maintained between bakings, or while being fed/expanded for the next baking, or at all times? I was also surprised to see ash content making an impact; is this a lesser factor than texture and temperature? I've made very sour and quite mild breads with both whole grain and white flours, but never compared them head to head. Diane Brown in St. Louis --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.10 --------------- From: "Randy Clemens" Subject: Pan Dulce Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 19:30:23 -0700 I have been searching far and wide for a source of information regarding Mexican sweet bread (pan dulce) and have been disappointed by the small amount of knowledge published, finding nothing in English, and one out of print book in Spanish, which was only 80 pages long anyway. Frankly, I don't know where else to turn for help. If anyone knows of any good sources of information regarding this style of bread, please let me know. I also have been looking for the hand tool they use to imprint the topping on conchas. Can anyone help? Thanks! - Randy Clemens - Los Angeles, CA --------------- MESSAGE bread-bakers.v103.n041.11 --------------- From: "Werner Gansz" Subject: Weighing Salt Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 12:04:16 -0400 In Joe Ortiz's "The Village Baker", he notes that salt inhibits the development of gluten by tightening the dough and making it less "extensible". Peter Reinhart, in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" says that salt is a yeast inhibitor and can kill yeast when concentrated. Whatever their respective reasons, both authors suggest using sea salt in bread and using special care to dissolve and distribute the salt.. Sea salt is evaporated salt "flakes" which dissolves more easily in water than crystallized table salt. Ortiz adds sea salt to the dough very late in the mixing process, when all but last 20% of the flour has been added and the dough is in its final 5 minutes of (hand) kneading. Adding crystallized salt at this stage could result in undissolved salt crystals in the dough. I have been using sea salt for several years but have been getting inconsistent results. I finally figured out why. Not all sea salts are created equal, at least in terms of weight. The local supermarkets don't always carry the same brands of sea salt all the time. I started getting "salty" breads when I bought a new box of sea salt and finally bought a scale to find out what was going on. My scale measures in 1/8 oz increments so I measured 10 level teaspoons of several salts to get a reasonably accurate measure of a teaspoon of salt. Unfortunately by this time the original container from my "suspect" salt was gone so I don't know what it was, but it weighed exactly the same as Morton's Table Salt (crystals), explaining why my breads were too salty; the weight correction for sea salt from Reinhart's "BBA" didn't apply to this salt. (I suspect that this unknown brand was just an overpriced table salt. The table below is my current list of salts and their weights. Also included is the salt content in a white bread such as baguettes based on a nominal 2% salt by weight. If you use anything other than table salt it is worth getting a scale and adding your salt to the table. I don't use the scale every time I bake because I now have the conversion from weight to volume but each new brand or texture of salt gets measured. The Reese's Sea Salt (Fine) is about the same density as Kosher Salt (which is also evaporated). I would expect a "Coarse" sea salt to be even lighter. King Arthur Bread Flour 4 3/8 oz/cup Morton's Table Salt .23 oz/tsp or .71 oz/Tb Morton's Kosher Salt .18 oz/tsp or .54 oz/Tb Reese's Fine Sea Salt .17 oz/tsp or .51 oz/Tb Unknown "Sea" Salt .23 oz/tsp Nominal Salt content in White Bread (Baguettes, etc) @ 2% by weight Salt Type Per Cup of flour 3 Cup Batch Table (Morton's) .0875 oz or 3/8 tsp 1/4 oz or 1 1/8 tsp Kosher (Morton's) .0875 oz or 1/2 tsp 1/4 oz or 1 1/2 tsp Fine Sea (Reese's) .0875 oz or 1/2 tsp 1/4 oz or 1 1/2 tsp --------------- END bread-bakers.v103.n041 --------------- Copyright (c) 1996-2003 Regina Dwork and Jeffrey Dwork All Rights Reserved