Big Bake

 

(Guest Post by Smokestack)
DOUGH NIGHT: As over clean dinner plates, around 8pm, Idiotbaker and I decided: it was time. Mrs. Idiotbaker and children fled the scene to make room for the culinary chaos about to ensue. Soon the wondermill was lighting up its fine-flour afterburner under Idiotbaker's impatient gaze, while I poured over the five-foot long schedule, wondering how we were going to pull all this off. 
We started with the Panettone. Peter Reinhart's recipe times sixteen. The test loaf turned out alright. We decided to incorporate more white wheat into the flour mix. No time to test again, so we're in uncharted territory as far as flour blend goes. 
One thing to remember when using a 20qt Hobart with a broken low-speed: hand-mix first. After the cloud of flour (raining butter) settled, the damage seemed negligible. The dough looked great after some Hobart TLC.
While Idiotbaker was tweaking the dough, I was doing the hard work: tasting booze/fruit mixtures for each of our four planned panettone batches. Fruits used: cranberry, cherry, currant, mango. Booze: Bacardi, Triple Sec. A couple of the batches had some OJ in there too. 
Also on the docket for the evening was prepping dough for 8 loves of Hutzelbrot. Using a mash is new to both of us. [IB- I messed up and added the altus to the mash as it went into the oven. :( .] No test batch for the Hutzelbrot. This should interesting to watch develop tomorrow afternoon. 
For now, all the dough balls are resting in bags and bowls covering the dining room table; waiting for morning when we fire up the oven. Until then, I'm going to grab a few hours shut-eye.