My Pico Bakery
I have been remiss in not posting sooner about my little (VERY little), home-based pico-bakery, Nickel Cat Bread Company. I made my first loaf of sourdough bread about 11 1/2 years ago, which was a success in very great part to all of the information I gleaned from this site as I was diving into the hobby. On June 3rd of this year, I sold my first loaves of bread as a licensed cottage bakery. I have purposely kept my production very small, providing loaves to friends and neighbors for porch pickup here in Redwood City, CA. My typical weekly production is 8-10 loaves, with a high of 16 loaves when I had extra orders for folks over the July 4th holiday. I will likely expand to 2 or 3 days a week since I'm seeing enough demand to support that level of production, and I'm still enjoying the heck out of the process.
I typically offer two types of bread per week from a list of five formulas that I have developed and tested:
Country Blend - 30% freshly milled whole wheat
Emerald Hills Blend - 70% freshly milled whole wheat
Stulsaft Cheddar & Herb - 10% whole wheat, sharp cheddar, thyme/rosemary
Oak Ridge Oats - 10% whole wheat, oat porridge
Summerhill Sesame - 20% whole wheat, 10% toasted sesame seeds
I could not possibly have gotten to this point without all of the information, interaction, and assistance I have received from countless posters on this site, so this blog entry is really a giant THANK YOU to @Floydm, and the entire TFL community. I am humbled by all of your incredible generosity! If anyone has any interest in any of the formulas for the list of loaves above, just let me know!
Here are a few photos of recent bakes in the "bakery"! :)
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Thank you, TFL!
Rich
Comments
All of your bread looks great! I'm sure your customers are thrilled to have them!
Which oven do you use to bake these beauties?
Best,
Yippee
I really am having fun, and the feedback has been fantastic! Thanks, Yippee!
I'm using my DCS double wall ovens to bake up my loaves. All on corderite stones (14"x16"x5/8") with the Sylvia towel steaming method. I still haven't cracked the code on being able to bake four loaves per oven, but I'm close! :)
Rich
I'd love to see the formula for the last 2.
Oak Ridge Oats - 10% whole wheat, oat porridge
Summerhill Sesame - 20% whole wheat, 10% toasted sesame seeds
Here are the formulas for the Oat and Sesame breads. Both are my own twists on, and amalgamations of, several formulas I found in various places, and after some testing in my kitchen.... Oh, and I had a typo in my blog entry, the whole wheat percentage in the oat porridge bread is 30%. :)
Oak Ridge Oats
Central Milling (CM) ABC+ - 70%
CM Red Spring (Fresh) - 15%
CM White Winter (Fresh) - 15%
Bob’s Red Mill (BRM) Oats - 15%
Water for oats - 30%
Levain - 20%
Water for dough - 73%
Salt - 2%
Oats are slowly simmered in oat water for about 15-16 minutes (timing lifted from The Perfect Loaf oat porridge bread)
Mix all but salt, rest 30
Pinch in salt, slap/stretch fold x30, rest 30
Coil folds @ 20min x2 or 3 (depending on feel)
Incorporate oats on Coil Fold #2
Total bulk 4-5 hours depending on temps
Overnight proof ~12-14 hours
Bake @ 475°F, 15 min with steam, 25 without
Summerhill Sesame
CM ABC+ - 38%
AP (Ardent) - 44%
CM Red Spring (Fresh) - 9%
CM White Winter (Fresh) - 9%
Sesame seed (toasted) - 11%
Water - 75%
Levain - 20%
Salt - 2%
Mix all but salt, rest 30
Pinch in salt, slap/stretch fold x30, rest 30
Coil folds @ 20min x2 or 3 (depending on feel)
Incorporate sesame seeds on Coil Fold #2
Total bulk 4-5 hours depending on temps
Roll loaves in sesame seeds after shaping
Overnight proof ~12-14 hours
Bake @ 475°F, 15 min with steam, 25 without
I’m so happy for your success Rich, it is well deserved. Your customers are fortunate to have you baking for them. All your breads look and sound delicious. Here’s to your ongoing success!
Benny
I appreciate the kind words and wishes, Benny! It's been fun so far, and as of this am I'm working on the details of a collaboration with another small business like mine....could be fun!
Rich
A great selection of breads you have there; I think you've made some shrewd and wise choices as to what breads are likely to sell well.
And given that you have five formulas, if you find one isn't as popular as you would like, then you can easily drop that one off and replace it with something else.
Good look for the future!
Lance
Thanks, Lance! I'm not that far into it, but I do keep track of how many times I've offered a formula, and how many loaves I've sold each time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the most popular loaf is the Country Blend, which is the whitest product I sell. After that, my data samples are just a bit too small to really draw too many conclusions, though the Cheddar/Herb and Sesame are both winners during their short time on my list! :)
I'll get some new Fall/Winter offerings figured out for when the seasons change.
R