Hello,

I work as the Community Development Director for a small town in east-central Minnesota.  Princeton (popul. 5,000) is a great community, but we do not have a bakery.  We had one in town for years, but it recently closed down.  We have space available downtown (including the old bakery building) and also commercial lots in the newer retail development near the intersection of two major highways.  If anyone has any ideas on how to attract a bakery into town, please let me know! 

Thank you,

Carie

Last week, Charlie came from Bowling Green, Ohio to hone his baking skills during a one-week internship at the Back Home Bakery.  Despite the initial butterflies, Charlie quickly adapted to the bakery hours and work schedule improving his dough handling skills throughout the week.  Below are some of the highlights from the week.

Thanks for the hard work, and I hope your family gets to enjoy some of the bread/pastries you learned to make during your internship.

-Mark
http://TheBackHomeBakery.com

Charlie transferring baguettes from the canvas to the baguette screen.

Here goes Charlie on the rolls

Charlie shaping croissants like a pro

Voila!

Michelle came to the Back Home Bakery from Vancouver, BC last month for one week of bread baking and pastry making.  Like most visiting interns who specialize in rustic breads, Michelle quickly added an introduction to laminated doughs to her repertoire.  She used her meticulous nature and detail oriented hand-skills to create picture perfect Apfelstrudels, Spinach Puffs and Cheese Danish too.  I think her favorite breads to shape were the Buckwheat Flax loaves we make into boules. 

Unfortunately, most of the pictures we took during the week were on her camera or tablet, so she is invited to add her own photos to this thread!

Thanks for the help Michelle, and I hope you and your husband continue to enjoy your baking skills at home.

-Mark
http://TheBackHomeBakery.com

Michelle pre-shaping the dough slabs on Day 1 of Puff-Pastry making.

Michelle demonstrating that moving quickly while working with sticky dough will make your life easier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hhpxkGB1OyY

Commercial baking to a rock and roll beat.

Y'all might be interested in this article about bakeries in Goa (a small Indian state that was once a Portuguese colony).

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/06/the-pao-of-love-part-one.html#more

Just an FYI! There are 3 states currently waiting on their Governors to sign and pass their state Cottage Food Laws. The states are Florida, Illinois and Texas (the bills are currently on the Governors' desk). The cottage food law in Washington state should go into effect in late July or early August (it was passed). Bakers are still trying to get support from legislators in California. Keeping your fingers crossed.

Happy Baking !

Denay

A bill that would allow Illinois residents to sell home-baked goods at farmers markets is headed to the governor's desk. Senate Bill 840, which passed the General Assembly Friday, would allow the sale of home-baked "non-potentially hazardous food," such as bread and cookies, at farmers markets and community events.  It also allows for the sale of jam, jelly and fruit butter. http://trib.in/j35fgn

After nearly two good years at my local Great Harvest, two weeks ago I packed up, called it good and moved to a new venture down the road. It was hard to leave good friends and a great boss, but after talking to my Chef/Professor at college and my fiance, I decided I had hit the wall, learned everything I could at the bakery and because of that, it was time to move on from my current bakery. In order to grow and develop I needed to start working on other skills and making different loaves daily.

Talk about a change! From making 200-300 loaves a day and even more during the holidays to making about 30 loaves a day and being in charge of the the whole bread department (just me mind you : ). My two weeks at Aggie Mae's has really made me appreciate taking time to work out the kinks, experiment and get in touch with my cake making, frosting and pastry skills!

The Great Harvest I worked at was wonderful, unfortunately I have had my mind set on my ACF Certification tests and working towards becoming a Certified Executive Pastry Chef down the line in a few years. I love bread mind you, I love it more than pastries, but I understand where the money is at in my area and how pastries can really help me out in this career, so I gladly took the position as the head baker and then helper with cakes. I am certainly glad I did shift jobs.

The first week I began baking in a hearth oven, making entirely new pizzas (asked on the spot, "Ok Arlo, what are some new pizzas you are going to put out this week?") Talk about pressure, but I came through! I made Prosciutto wrapped asparagus with red peppers and Parmesan pizzas. Blue cheese, pear and walnut pizzas and more. I also worked out a new multi-grain bread recipe which went over well enough today the owner asked me to triple the recipe for the Saturday crowd!

From croissants, to mini fresh fruit tarts, country bread, sourdough seed breads, creme anglaise and more, I have certainly learned a lot this week alone and have worked on some great products.

The only rough side, work starts at 2 am now instead of 3 am.

Such is life though : )

Hello,
    We are in the process of looking for a replacement for our oven/range. We have some unique needs, and I would like to tap into the knowledge base from fellow bakers as to the kind of oven we should purchase.
    We have a larger family (7 children). We need a gas oven. We have a small family bakery where we sell cookies, quick breads, and yeast breads 1-2 days a week. We would sell between 35-50 loaves of bread at a time. We live about 6,500 feet above sea level. We are missionaries who live outside the country where U.S. coding laws do not exist. We are currently in the States and plan to have a range shipped back to where we live.
    Pretty much, we are trying to decide if we should buy a high-end, professional, residential model (36") such as a Wolf or a Thermador. Or, if we should cross the bridge to an industrial/commercial (also 36") model such as a Vulcan, American, or South Bend.
     I would appreciate any and all advice or experiences you might want to share with us. Thank you in advance for your help.

Minnesota Gal

As I promised on my last entry, I took pictures of my bakery during work this morning.  I'll explain some of the methods and processes that we employ as well, since each boulangerie does things its own way.  We are an artisan bakery and use no pre-fabricated frozen dough or chemical additives.  The levain for most of the breads (excluding the standard baguettes) is all natural, made with apple juice we press ourselves.

I work with a small staff of two bread bakers and one pastry chef - the patron or boss makes the specialty cakes.  The bakers work from 3am/5am until 9am/11am every day, and the pastry chef from 5am until afternoon.  Breads not baked in the morning are baked by the boss in the wood-fired oven two or three times during the day, but all the work is done before 10am except for the specialty cakes.  The short hours and small staff keep costs way down while managing to put out between 800 to 1100 loaves daily in about 30-40 different varieties.  While some credit should be given to the equipment, most belongs to the two bakers themselves who are incredible to see in action.  I'm thankful to be learning from them!  So, the pictures:

We use an 8-deck hearth oven at 310 deg. C, or 590 deg. Fahrenheit.  Loaves are taken out of the retarder in the morning and let proof before going in the oven.  The first baker arrives at 3am and takes them out, mixing other doughs to let bulk ferment during the early morning hours.  Around 5am the other baker arrives and the oven gets going.  One baker forms baguettes to be retarded that afternoon and night while the other bakes the breads from the day before.  At 9am everything for the day has been baked and we weigh all the specialty doughs, which have been fermenting, and fashion all the loaves, and then they go in the retarder until the next morning.  This is the process for 90% of the breads.

The specialty doughs go in the spiral mixer and the normal white dough goes in the large oblique mixer.

Baguettes during pre-shaping:

Here are some loaves about to go in the oven.  The dark ones are baguettes aux céréales and the one with the ring is bread made with hazelnut flour.  The second picture show baguettes nouvelles, explained below.

For the baguettes nouvelles (new baguettes), the dough undergoes a 72 hour bulk fermentation in the refrigerator and then is formed with a hydraulic machine to not deflate the gas.  Notice the machine and the metal grill below:

Here are some loaves fresh from the oven: round miches, large pain paysan, regular baguettes on the oven loader, dusted baguettes de tradition, and baguettes nouvelles in the case.

My favorite bread we bake each Saturday is the grand pain paysan, a slab of dough weighing 5kg, or 11lbs!  It's sold by the kilo.

I don't do much with pastries - one absolute master pastry chef makes them all.  Fresh strawberries are all the rage right now, and we're doing a buy 3 strawberry pastries, get 1 free deal.  The picture with the almonds and raisins shows mini-kugelhopfs, the special pastry of my neighbor region Alsace.

Finally, some pictures from inside the store.  Most boulangeries suffer from either an overly-elaborate or overly-dull store space, often too small.  Not the case here!  From the enormous wood-fired oven imported from Mexico - producing an unbelievably tasty bread - to the lime green walls, it's a great place to find whatever suits your palate.

At home after a long morning of work, enjoying a baguette nouvelle.  Hope you've enjoyed the pictures!

Nate