wspahr's blog

Every year before Easter, our church's baking guild will gather a group of volunteers, bake Hot Cross buns, and sell them as a Church fund raiser.  This year we baked 60 dozen buns over a 2 day period. We used the recipe from Hammelman's Bread mixing 4 dozen at a time. We nicknamed the volunteers, most who are not bakers, the holy rollers.    It is a great way to have some fun together as well as introducing folks to what baking is about. 

Just finished baking a couple of loaves of Tartine sourdough.  Handling of this wet dough has become much easier after watching some You Tube videos showing how to shape. I have found that doing an overnight proofing in the refrigerator makes the Scoring much easier.  It also gives better time flexibility in baking as you do not have to let the dough warm up after the overnight proofing. All of this is outlined in the book Tartine bread.  This is a fun bread to make.   Tastes great too.

I am looking for information about how long one can store bread in the freezer without degradation or absorbing freezer odors. I am making some english muffins, scones and baguettes for a week long training session at our church. There will be about 30 people at the training session so I will need to stockpile to have enough. I have frozen bread before by wrapping in plastic wrap and then putting in a plastic bread bad from KA. If any one has any suggestions about wrapping bread prior to freezing, they would be appreciated.

Thanks