Hi

Does anyone have any ideas of how to ship a fresh loaf of bread to china??  My son is a junior in high school in Beijing and would really love some fresh bread!  Thanks for any ideas you have!

mom of son in china

Greetings all,

So this is my second attempt using what I guess is called French Fold? I found it from the video http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/video/2008/03/bertinet_sweetdough which this site linked to me.

Anyways, both times I've tried it, it has stayed sticky all the way through, up to 30 minutes of kneading! Not sticky like it looks at the beginning of the video, but still sticking to my hands/table. Could it just be a hydration issue or am I doing something wrong?

I combine my ingredients thoroughly and then get to kneading. I know that's not how the specific french fold area of the this site explains to do it, but that's how the video showed it and I can't argue with his results ... although I could argue with mine :(

Thanks for any help on this.

Hi all,

I was wondering if any home bakers here have had success selling their breads from their home kitchen.  Were you able to sell to more than friends and family?  Farmer's market?  Anywhere else?  Your trials and errors would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Mike

Making a baguette recipe at GF's house, from memory...

Accidentally doubled water, so I ran with it.  However, I used 2t yeast in a double batch, where I'd normally use 3t for a single recipe.  Can I save it?  I figure (much) longer rising time might do the trick.  I don't feel like baking today in the first place, but have sauce & meatballs on the stove already, which will need bread (also new pasta machine at my/our disposal, so we're gonna give that a first try tonight as well).  My parents etc will benefit at tomorrow's cookout if I can make this work, since I will now have more bread than I can eat.  Worth my time to save it, or should I start anew?

(Sorry if this is a stupid newbie question)

This might be a simple minded question but please understand I'm still not sure what I'm really doing yet.I made some regular kneaded white bread today in loaf pans and it's so far my best effort at bread makimg.My question is:Can I just use the dough that I made today for the loaves of bread to make some dinner rolls?I mean like it seems it would be the same thing only smaller.I might not need to bake them as long?Tell me something please.

It seems like most everyone on this site is a sourdough fan. For those of you who are, what is your opinion of the bread served at Claimjumper restaurants? I have never been a big fan of sourdough breads. It could be that I have never met a truly good one, or it could be that I just don't like it. The bread at Claimjumper was totally inedible to me.

Since there are so many versions available, I am wondering if I should try it on my own and risk throwing it straight into the garbage after putting a lot into it (even if it is the best bread ever made by your standards) or resign myself to excluding it from my "playlist".

Thanks for your opinions,

Paul

My Google-fu is seriously lacking today as I just can't find anything about it. Any ideas?

Today was a good day, sort of.  Everything went according to plan and by the afternoon the I had two loaves of sourdough in the oven for the final rise.  It was hot and sunny so I took my 7-year-old out to do some skateboarding.  I thought he wouldn't last more than 20 minutes so I didn't pay attention to the time.  To my surprise, he wanted to go on and we ended up skateboaring for over an hour.  Came back in and suddenly remembered the dough in the oven.  Had a look... dough overflowing each and every direction.  The sandwich loaf was hanging over the edge of the loaf pan and the free form one looked exploded and the surface cracked big time.  I had to laugh because they're the big, the bad, and both very ugly! I didn't want to bother to do a third rise so I went ahead to bake them anyway.  I had never seen an overproofed loaf this big before so that was more funny than sad.  We all looked at the two loaves (now baking) and giggled.  Lesson well learned, never underestimate a 7-year-old and the rising power of wild yeast!  LOL

I make round loaves of dark rye bread and bake it on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal on a sheet pan. The bottoms of the loaves are coming out too dark and hard. Any suggestions as to how I can prevent this? If I use a baking stone does it have to go into a cold oven and would this prevent the dark bottoms? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I was out this afternoon and had a few minutes to kill.  Went in a Goodwill store and found one 6-cavity doughnut pan and one 12-mini doughnut pan.  Got them together for $9.  I would have to pay twice as much to buy them new so I thought might as well.  Now, here's a problem... no one at home, including myself, eats doughnuts or bagels.  I know, I bought them because they were there staring at me and I couldn't resist.  LOL  What else can I use these cute doughnut pans for?  Mini cakes and muffins?  Can I use them to make doughnut shape dinner rolls or will they turn out too crispy?