Blog posts

Hello fellow bakers,

I'm in the early stages of researching what it will take to open a small (100 loaves/day) craft bread bakery.  I would be grateful to anyone who has had direct experience with such an endeavor, or anyone who can point me to resources for such things as commercial ovens, mixers, and other equipment/supplies.  I'm considering gas or electric with steam injection but am unfamiliar with size and brand recommendations.  

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

Steve

I haven't used my Bell LaCloche in quite sometime.  It is one my favorite pieces of baking equipment and one I don't feel I wasted my money on...which I have plenty of those.  

I had a single large boule of a 'Basic 100% sourdough'. The formula I used with some minor changes is from 'Northwest Sourdough's' bread site.

I pre-heated my  regular oven and BLC.  It baked up one lovely, crackly tasty loaf as always and didn't take as long as heating up and baking on my oven stones.

Steam buns are very popular breakfast in Taiwan. This can be used as 'sandwich bread' to make sandwich with scrambled egg, cucumber, mayo, ham, dried pork crisp。

I'm seeking brave enough people to try a new recipe tool I've made.

It's a recipe editor that supports multiple stages, scaling, servings and the most important (I believe) nutrition data analysis based on USDA's NDB research. It allows the user to create a nutrient data report by selecting freely from a list of nutrients. I have included a recipe sample for testing only, I never made this bread actualy! Please understand that this is not fully debuged yet, so some errors may appear that I would like to know and fix them.

Hello! I've been a Fresh Loaf reader since 2008, when my husband, Dado, introduced it to me. Together we're the team (TFL handle bagel_and_rye) who post about the activities of Chicago Amateur Bread Bakers from time to time. This weekend I finally got around to creating a TFL blog all my own.

. . . bake on a day like today.  I baked cheese bisquits from PR's ABED. I'm afraid I haven't had much appetite these past few days as the southern half of my province, my town and immediate nieghborhood have bee hit hard by record flooding.  My first thought was to bake something up for the troops in the 'hood, but they were gone by the time these were out of the oven.

The first photo shows my home on Grotto Road, Canmore, Alberta, Canada, looking soouth east:

Ok, so they didn't turn out as pretty as I was hoping: (but see how I took them into natural lighting for you :))

Clearly, I had no plan for shaping them, but i wanted to try without a basket this time because I wanted longer loaves than I have baskets. The smaller looking one turned out better. I haven't cut them yet, but I gave the better looking one to my neighbor so no crumb shot of that one. 

Finally, i baked some bread. It has been a busy period, full of duties, and errands. I wanted a good wholewheat bread, so i baked a Golden Date bread from Laurel's bread book.

AHH.. Golden date bread... sweet, healthy, soft, almost muffin like bread.

It's summer time.  Finally.  The grill gets cleaned up, and ready to be used as many times as possible until the rain and cold comes again in October.  I have been itching to try making some thin crust pizzas on my gas grill but now utilizing some unglazed quarry tiles.  The tiles really helped up the quality of my breads so I figured they should help my pizzas on the grill.  My past attempts making pizzas on the grill were both frustrating and disappointing.  Burnt bottoms due to the direct flame, and overall just not what I was after. 

are really hard. Wow. Just attempted them. Maybe I shouldn't have tried something challenging with my first ever effort at a poolish, too. They aren't baked yet, but they look pretty terrible. I added extra flour to the dough and it was still ridiculously soft and wet. I was using the poolish baguette formula from Hamelmn's "Bread". I think I will have to give it another go...but now I am even more apprehensive than before.