Well, I thought I was preparing for Christmas well in advance but it turns out I wasn't.

I've been reading the BBA at lunch (as is generally my habit, to read cookbooks while I eat -- this is how I learned to cook in the first place) and came across Panettone recipe. I thought, what a great idea, I'll make this for my Christmas farmers' market. My customers would love that -- and I still have plenty of time to practice making it.

No such luck, of course. Having read closer, I realized that to follow PR's recipe I'd have to embark on a whole new adventure of getting involved with barm. As I said in my first post, I am still deathly afraid to try my hand at multiple-step doughs. Basically, it all boils down to my fear of using formulas and getting confused with math.

So I started looking for a tried and true panettone recipe that does not involve barm. My TFL search produced a number of threads (with plenty of beautiful pictures) but no recipes that would be a simpler one-step process. Someone mentioned Jim Lahey's slow-rise panettone recipe and I decided that I would like try that. Is there a recipe on line? I looked and looked but couldn't find it. If it exists, I would really appreciate a link. If it doesn't, is it in his new book?

Which brings up another question. Like so many others, I started baking thanks to Jim Lahey's no-knead bread. So I would really like to have his book. What's your opinion? Is it a book worth having?

I would be very grateful for any thoughts and suggestions.

Nika

Hello bakers, I was wondering if There are any tricks to getting a deep brown color without burning the bottom or over cooking my breads. I have a double oven and find the larger bottom oven browns slightly better, but still no great shakes. Thanks,  any help you can offer is always appreciated.

The sixth annual Asheville Artisan Bread Bakers' Festival is set for March 20, 2010.

Details are available at:

http://www.asapconnections.org/bread2010.html

Lionel Vatinet and Peter Reinhart are the featured bakers for the festival.

I made Jasons Ciabatta today tasted great but flat as a board. I followed the directions exactly. Except I used A.P. flour. I lost track of the last rise but it looked great at that point nice and puffy. I think I messed up with the stretching of the dough. I was hoping it would bounce back in the oven. Any ideas what went wrong? Tasted great the little piece is all that's left of the first loaf. LOL

Just like my ID showing, I am a real rookie of artisan bread baking. Recently I am getting interesed in sourdough bread and started to feed my own starter. But when I tried to prepare for my first bread, I realized I do not have a baking stone which is essential for artisan bread  based on expert advise.

Before this I have no idea about baking stone, I googled it online and found some online shop. But the thing is quite confusing out  there. Most of these baking stone's description are about pizza baking. I am wondering is it appropriate to buy one of these stone to bake artisan bread? Since it is quite fragile and easily to be broken during shipping ,is there any local store I can get one?

Thanks a lot for your guys help !!

Baking bread can be such a humbling experience!  Just about the time you think you're finally making some headway, alone comes an absoultely horrible loaf that brings you back to earth.  In the interest of learning, let me share my current negative experience - and maybe someone knows what's happening here - I sure don't!

Last night I put together a sourdough dough to ferment overnight - was kind'a wet, but it was too late to think much about it - this morning I rechecked my recipe source and discovered that I had erred on the amount of flour - I had put in about 15% less than called for.  So I thought, OK, I'll just add the needed 15% more flour, and put it back on the KA to work some more - I did that and left it on the KA for about 12-15 minutes.

I noticed some strange behavour during the kneading, at first, the dough clung to the hook as one would expect (this was now a 62% hydration dough), but when I next looked at it, the dough had sunk to the bottom of the bowl.  So I stopped the machine, and removed the dough.  It was strangely shiny, sticky, and had lost its strength - had the gluten broken down?  Also, instead of being smooth and tight, it had dimples on its surface - like dough with acne.

I covered it and put it in a proofing environment, but I'm not expecting much from this batch.

What's happening here?  I'd love to know just so I can know what to avoid in the future.  Or what to do right.

I make Italian bread for my wife's family and they love it. Now and then I make rolls and they enjoy the nice wheat after taste I get from the preferment. The other day my 87 year old Father in law asked me if I could make a good old style crusty hard roll that is chewy inside and not to light. I searched here and found some information I had participated in with Norm where he said the dough is the same as the onion rolls.

After a couple attempts, I'm not getting a crusty crust that stays hard as the bread cools. I haven't sprayed water on the dough before baking yet. Has anyone had luck with getting a good crispy crust on a hard roll?

Eric

I'm making Reinhart's ciabatta recipe, but I've run out of time this evening;  I'll just get to the end of the bulk fermentation.  Will it hurt this recipe to slap the dough into the fridge this evening and do the shaping and proofing tomorrow?

hi i just wanted to ask as there are so many different techniques out there, how do you shape your baguettes. i made seven baguettes the other day from a batch of pain ordinaire that i had made up from the village baker. initially i wanted to practice my scoring. the technique i used to shape was one i had seen in a video on youtube,  'artisan breads week 2 - baguettes'. i thought it was really informative. so i tried this as well as the technique described by richard bertinet in his book dough.

i noticed the first method had more folding involved while bertinet's just had the one fold after the initial 'envelope fold' then rolling to elongate and seal seam.

bertinet's method i used for only the last one and it did come out the nicest looking in appearance (shape, scoring, inside texture) but whether this was due to the technique or practice on the previous six baguettes, i don't know lol !

any thoughts?

.  

I finally did it. I installed a conventional oven in a small shed here at my resort. I have fed the birds 50-60 lbs of bread trying to get a decent loaf with my small convection/microwave oven in my Motor Home.

After about 10 minutes of Baking I had a nice smile on my face. Its about time. All the nice coments and help I have got from the forum and now I can bake again. Thanks Floyd for all the nice replys and the members also.   

 Now I be happy.

 Mr Bob

www.siemann.us