Blog posts

This week I made the dough for Hamelman's baguettes with poolish yet again.  This time, instead of making three 11-13 inch baguettes, scaled at 250g, I made one 750g loaf.  Since the 250g baguettes would be called demi-baguettes, clearly this was a mega-baguette. Clearly.

Okay, fine, I made a batard and scored it like a baguette.  Still it came out pretty nicely.

Crust Crackles, too!

Glenn, inadvertently, threw down the gauntlet this week when he asked a question in his post: How to get a light and tender crumb in sourdough.  I took up the challenge (even though I know Glenn didn't mean it that way) and in the process got diverted from what I had originally itended to bake this weekend. 

I purchased some Pakistani Wheat (for Atta) , and i wanted to see how it fairs in Peter Reinhart's Wholegrain Recipes. I'am not sure of the protein content of This wheat, but i read that Atta flour is between 11.5% to 13% Protein. I milled the berries, and found them to be medium hard. The resultant flour made a coherent smooth dough, and delayed fermentation helped strengthen the dough even more.

Adding Milk, Butter and Honey, helped soften the dough further, and the result was a pliable soft dough that passed windowpane test.

Though I haven't posted about bread in a while, I have my reasons. No, I am still working at the bakery baking bread daily which hasn't made me bread-sick. I still am studying to complete my degree (end of this fall it looks like!) but I make time for the important things in life (like baking!). But what is keeping me away from bread is that I am working towards my American Culinary Federation Certified Pastry Chef title, which I hope to obtain this year. What that means is I have been baking a lot of genoise cakes, cookies and attempting Bavarian cream.

Once again Captain Kirk has saved the Federation.  A new shipment of quadrotriticale will be delivered to  Sherman's Planet.  But how are they to eat it?  Yes, it can be cooked liked rice or flaked and cooked into porridge.  But what if the good people of Sherman's Planet want sammiches?  What are they to do?

I'm still wearing a temporary cast on my left wrist/hand, but an x-ray, Tuesday, revealed no fracture. None the less, although relieved, the doctor prescribed an infernal nylon-velcro cast be worn until the sprained and bruised wrist heals: about three to four weeks. So, I've regained the ability to use the shift-key, but not the bowl scraper. No hand-mixing for me for the duration.

Back to the title:

Tre Franceses

“Pan Francese” simply means “French Bread” in Italian. It is a long, thin loaf that is the Italian version of a baguette. Daniel Leader has a formula in Local Breads which he titles “Italian Baguettes” and says are called “Stirato,” which means “stretched” in Italian. Michel Suas' Advanced Bread and Pastry includes a formula for “Pan Francese,” and we made this bread during the Artisan II workshop at SFBI.

Dear Susan,  or whoever answered my question regarding this dark loaf,   thank you for telling me what size to make it in my bread machine.  2 lbs.  This is regarding my question about the dark loaf from the cheescake factory.  Thanks again!  Laurie K.