Anyone order from FrontierSurvival.net?
Hello all! This will serve as a personal introduction as well as my first question on the board. My name is Tim and I'm from Pittsburgh, PA. I'm VERY new to baking let alone bread baking. I'm a pretty good cook, but I've always been horrible at baking. I've always been a big fan of good, rustic and European-style breads and thought I would try to learn how to make some. A few months ago, I purchased the BBA but still haven't made anything from it yet. I've only made some English muffins (recipe from this forum) and a couple of sourdough loaves for family gatherings.
Anywho... I was wondering if anyone has ever ordered anything from www.FrontierSurvival.net which seems to sell a LOT of different kinds of flours. My next adventure will be to try to make NY style bagels since I crave them weekly and can't seem to satisfy my craving by visiting local bakeries. I was looking for high protein flour on the web and happened to see this site and thought I would ask the experts here if they've had any experience with it.
I've enjoyed this board (I read daily and have for about 3 months) and hope to become a more active member when I'm done messing up my first few loaves :)
Tim
Tim,
Welcome to TFL!
You'll find lots of bakers here, from newbies to retired professionals. All of them share an interest in making good (in some cases outstanding) bread. Don't be bashful about asking questions or sharing your successes and flops. We all have our share of each.
You may already have noticed the Search box near the upper left corner of the screen. Type in a word or phrase (bagels, for instance) and you'll be able to locate all of the previous posts about that topic. I use it frequently.
I haven't heard about Frontier Survival. It looks as though they are selling Honeyville Grain products (http://store.honeyvillegrain.com) with a small markup. A number of posters have ordered from Honeyville with good results. And, today at least, Honeyville is offering to ship your entire order for $4.49.
Merry Christmas and merry baking, too.
Paul
Thank you, Paul! There are so many ingredients and sites out there that it can get confusing, especially for a beginner. This has been such a great place for information, I think Floyd has done a fantastic service to the rest of the baking world!
I have found great information by lurking here for a few months and I can't wait to share my experiences. I've attached my pictures of my english muffin and sourdough batches.
Merry Christmas to you as well and I look forward to hopefully being a more active member of the board.
Tim
Tim,
I made English Muffins this weekend too, using the sourdough version from the King Arthur 200th Anniversary cookbook. Yours look very good.
You may also want to do a search on slashing. There is a lot that has been asked and answered on that topic and there are links to some helpful videos. Slashes that are more or less perpendicular to the long axis of the loaf are typical for some types of rye breads. For wheat breads that are in the batard shape, as shown in your picture, or in the baguette shape, the usual practice is to align the slashes almost parallel to the long axis of the bread. There is a little bit of diagonal in the slashes, enough that each slash overlaps the adjacent slash by about one-third of its length. Understand that my preaching is often better than my practice. ;-)
Keep on baking.
Paul