I started using Artisan Bakery Software recently (www.artisanbakery.co.uk). It has really helped me in my small bakery. I enter all my recipes and it prints weighing lists, invoices etc. The best thing is that is scales the recipes to suit the order book. At USD 12 it paid for itself in one day.

I recently got the book "Confessions of a French Baker" and I want to try out some of the recipes but I don't know where in Melbourne that I could possibly find Type 55 strong bread white flour. Anyone know where I could get this? Would Manildra have it? (I work for Bakers Delight and thats who supplies our flour).

Anyone know where to get a rectangular stone that's larger than 14 x 16? I'm looking for something close to 16 x 20 so I can make larger pizza's and longer loaves of bread. The only one I've found are the fibrament stones, but they're a little on the pricey side.

Thanks,
Rich

Platinum Pizza Peel

What are the 4 different processes that produce these four types of yeast:
cake yeast
active dry yeast
rapid-rise (Fleishman)
instant/bread machine?

Ok I've seen them mentioned anytime French bread comes up.
Is a bakers couche no more than a piece of canvas or linen that's been floured?

Is the purpose to keep the baguettes relatively straight while proofing?

From what I've seen here: http://shop.bakerscatalogue.com/landing.jsp?go=DetailDefault&ref=pub1&id=6222
it appears they facilitate easy transfer to a peel which then pops them onto a baking stone.

I can't imagine it'd cost me nearly $17.00 to find a piece of unbleached canvas with the same dimensions and coat it with flour and have a home made version of the 'bakers couche'.

I found this site surfing the web to learn about pizza and bread baking. I never realized there would be a problem transferring a pizza to a hot stone without destroying the shape and splattering it like road-kill all over my clean oven. Corn meal was not working either. Not to mention how many times I have seared my knuckles on burner-elements or caught my long hair in the oven door...*sigh*...yes I am cursedly clumsy, to all you who are blessed with a flour-thumb. Reading through the posts I found Pizzameister's advice on a SuperPeel and to check out the videos demonstrating its use. Further intriqued, I checked Cooks Illustrated on line to see if they had a review and sure enough here's their last paragragh:

I'd love to get away from my dependency on the bread machine and get into making some more novel types of breads.

I'm hoping someone knows where to find a nice "big" (3 feet x 2 feet or so) wood board for kneading. I'm trying to learn by hand versus mixer, and formica is too sticky. Hoping wood is better...

For christmas, my fiance's parents got me the sil-pin.