I just bought 2 bannetons from Brotform.com. Besides the instruction they will send me, are there any other Pearls of Wisdom others can pass on in in using the willow bannetons? Thanks! Jean-Paul

Hello everyone!

I have had it with my Whirlpool self-cleaning convection oven.

I bought it two years ago for the sum of $1,500 plus tax - Not cheap. And yet, it has been problem-plagued ever since.

The trouble began when I started baking bread using the convection feature. The control panel would freeze up and not respond at the end of baking. It had a "touch-sensitive" glass panel, and no matter what I did, it would not turn off.

Fortunately, I purchased a five-year warranty with the appliance.

The repairman has come at least five times and has been unable to correct the problem. He replaced some electronic parts and even the entrire panel at one time. It would work okay for a little while and then act up again.

I am convinced this is a design flaw with this model of Whirlpool convection ovens. This is likely due to the way the convection is vented through the back of the appliance in the same area that the electronic panel is. Extremely hot, humid air and electronic components do not mix, a fact that was somehow overlooked at Whirlpool.

The responsible thing to do is issue a nation-wide recall... But that could affect Whirlpools bottom line of course.

This is a dangerous flaw as it could leave the homeowner with an appliance that will not shut off and could potentially lead to a house fire.

Luckily, I put my stove on appliance wheels, so I was able to pull it away from the wall to unplug it when this happened.

The company that backs the guarantee notified me they now agree the stove is a lemon and will replace it with a new one of similar value.

The question I have is - what would you recommend as a decent range (gas or electric) and why?

I would prefer a quality appliance with none of the features which cause trouble down the road such as self-cleaning, convection, touch pad, control panels. Better off with real knobs to control the stove instead of a digital keypad that costs $500 or more to replace.

I know many of you have had similar experiences and have had to dump an otherwise perfectly good appliance due to this built-in obsolescence. It's a real disgrace.

So thank you for taking the time to read this and hopefully we can begin a lively discussion on which oven is the best value for the home baker!

Thank you and happy baking!

Jerome the Giraffe

I wanted to just let y'all know that I've been using the Datapax software for a while now to track my ingredient useage and sales. They recently did a joint venture with GlobalBake and upgraded me to this new GlobalBake software. i LOVE it! It does the nutrition labels, tracks sales, receipts and recipes and can even forecast what I'm going to need to buy. Anyone else find some good bakery management software out there? I tried a few of the others a few years ago and found them to be targeted to the small business; which is fine if I wanted to have to redo everything as I grow! I looked for information on here regarding software and hadn't found anything useful so I wanted to post.

Thanks!

I just unpacked my bosch yesterday and made a couple loafs of bread, it worked really nicely.  My bread is good, but the crumb is kind of fine and the loaf almost looks like something from a store, whichis nice but I'd like to get something with a little more irregular sort of bubbles and such.  I did not use a rest at all, just kneaded for maybe 6-8 mins, let rise once, shape, let rise again, bake.

I'm going to do a rest of maybe 20 mins next time after a short mix-up

Any tips for making great bread w/ the Bosch?

Also, I'm curious if people have any experience with the attachments, including the meat grinder, grain mill and food processor.  I have all the KA stuff, but would be more than happy to just have one mixer at some point.

I just got my new infrared thermometer and I have a few questions.

What does D:S (12:1) mean? I understand there is a ratio of 12:1, but I don't understand what it means in practical terms.

Where should I measure my hearth loaves? Center side? Center top? And will that measurement be an accurate measure of the internal temperature?

--Pamela

We're going to be leaving in about 10 days on a road trip and will be away from home for about a month so I'm not going to order a mixer at this time.Upon our return however I will want to aquire a decent mixer and so I pose the question.What's generally considered the best bang for the buck.I'm reading a few reviews and currently I'm leaning towards the Cuisinart 7 quart model SM70 which is currently selling on ebay for $349 with free shipping.I had thought the kitchen aid mixers were supposed to be the preferred mixers for home bread makers but now after reading so many reviews it seems to me the SM70 is a better deal.So....???

Up until now, after 7 years I have loved my Frigidaire double convection oven made by Electrolux.  It browns a roast, cookies and bread beautifully.

However this summer, I am experiencing expensive breakdowns of the electrical relay boards.  Is this common?  My repairman says that it is common in this area to experience this because of all of the oak trees mingling with the powerlines.  I live in Florida - and we do have electrical power surges due to all of the high air condition needs, thunderstorms, etc.

I am afraid to ask if it has something to do with me using steam....   I use a roasting pan filled with barbeque stones.  I have never really needed the oven in the summer before, other than for roast potatoes or birthday cakes - as we almost always grill, stir fry or pasta for meals.

Do any of you electrical buffs have any opinion on the use of steam/water in the oven causing relay board problems?

I've had a couple 5 and 6 quart home mixers over the years and have had mixed luck making bread.  I make bread most every day, about 5 pounds of dough total at about 50% hydration using mostly high gluten pizza flour and grinding in some wheat flour.  I also make pasta dough from time to time with semolina which makes a heavy doughball.

My question is would I have better luck with a bosch or electrolux or different design mixer?  It seems like the dough mixing puts a strain on the internals of the kitchenaid type mixers and they tend to break or overheat, which gets old.

I just want to make my bread every morning and be done with it, I was hoping to avoid doing it by hand every day because I have 10 million othe things going on in the morning around here and it's a fairly big dough ball.

I bought this new and used it for home baking for a few years, It's in really nice shape and has everything you need including two different dough hooks, it's a workhorse:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=330344515320

I just purchased a new Cadco convection oven and to say I am thrilled would be an understatement. After using a 20-year old Whirlpool oven with a Hearthkit Oven insert while I learned to bake bread during the past six months, and producing very satisfactory results, I have found this new oven to be big step up in ease of use and evenness of baking. Since there are virtually no reviews of this oven on the web, I wanted to share my experiences with this group that has provided me with so much useful information.

DETAILS: After having semi-lusted for this oven since seeing it in operation a few months ago, I used the occasion of a malfunction of my regular oven to to treat myself to the Cadco even though I had never used a convection oven before.
The model I chose, the XAF-113 is the largest countertop convection oven they make that can operate on 120 volt current, so no special electrical hookup is needed. It is an approximately 24" stainless steel cube with a huge glass front window and door which provides a clear bright view of everything going on in the oven. No more peering through a small, darkened window or cracking open the door to see how the bread is doing. It has a capacity of 3 half-sized (16 x 12 inch) sheet pans.

This unit also has a very simple manual as opposed to digital control panel. (Digital, programmable panels are available on more expensive models). There are basically only two control knobs, time and temperature. Temperature range is 175°-500° F. Just recently, Cadco introduced  a manual "steam" button on this model and my unit is equipped with it. It is not a true steam injector but seems to work well anyway. What it is is a built-in small electric pump which draws water thru an inlet hose which has its outside end inserted in a water container. This water is then sprayed on the ventilator fan and heating element and dispersed throughout the baking compartment. Although I could see some water droplets being scattered around the inside, no drops appeared to mark the bread crust, and my final crusts seemed to be as good as I was getting using hot water thrown on lava rocks in a skillet. And, this is so much easier. The skin on my hands and arms has already started celebrating the end of daily steam burns.

I have also equipped my oven with a 1/4" metal plate that Cadco sells as an accessory to use instead of a baking stone. They claim that this heats up much more quickly than a stone yet retains heat as well as a stone. After baking two loaves I am inclined to agree with them. The metal plate has protrusions coming from the bottom surface which seem to markedly increase the exposed surface area and allow it recover quickly.

EXPERIENCE: I have only used it to bake two loaves so far since I just installed it yesterday. What I immediately noticed was that the oven heats up much quicker than my conventional oven and stone. Normally, it takes my oven 1 hour plus to reach 500°. With the Cadco, it took about 25 minutes!

The first loaf I baked was variation of Eric Kayser's Baguette Monge. I have been playing around with this formula a lot recently trying to work out a successful cold retardation process. I have baked probably 20 loaves recently so I am well aware of the whole gamut of final loaf possibilities. I was extremely pleased when the oven turned out the best loaf of this bread that I have so far been able to bake. I adapted the baking temps by reducing the pre-heat temp from 500° to 450°. Normally, the temp on loading is set to 425° and I reduced it to 400°. Usual baking time has been 25 minutes and with the Cadco I used 20 minutes. What I got was great oven rise and grigne, lovely browning and the most open and moist crumb of any loaf so far. In addition, the overall browning of the loaf appeared to be quite uniform. Although I did rotate the loaves out of habit, I never saw any unevenness in the browning of the crust and rotating is probably not necessary. Here are some photos:

The second loaf was Hamelman's Golden Raisin and Walnut bread. I had never made this before and figured this would be a good test of whether just following simple guidelines for conversion to convection would be sufficient to produce a good loaf. Well, I was more than satisfied with the loaf. It had a wonderful crispy, chewy crust and a beautiful, semi-open and very moist crumb. I had no problems with over-browning of the crust with just reducing baking temps by 25-30 degrees.
Here's some more photos:

In trying to be "fair and balanced", these are some of the negatives:

-Pretty noisy although I have gotten used to it.
-No audible signal when oven has reached operating temperature
-Not supposed to be built-in. Need 4-5" clearance on all sides.
-Manual cleaning, not self-cleaning.

SUMMARY: In sum, I am extremely happy with this product. Although my experience with the oven is brief, it appears to be an extremely valuable tool for baking hearth-type breads. And the fact that this may provide a satisfactory solution to the ever-present "steaming" problem is a real plus for me.

As far as price goes, the unit lists for $1850 but I have seen it on the web for $1200-$1300 dollars. If you order one, make sure that it has the new manual "Humidity" button. Both the old and new units have the same model number so that alone is not enough to know what unit you are buying.

I hope that this will help those members who have been leery of convection ovens, just as I was, to consider it as a possibility. I have never used another convection oven, so this review is not meant to say that the Cadco is better than any other brand. I just know that it works, works well, and appears to be very solidly built. YMMV.

Jessica