February 24, 2009 - 1:29pm
Tastes just like bread from the store!
I've been playing with the pain a l'ancienne recipe. The last batch was the best yet. I used King Arthur unbleached white flour and I did a number of French folds on the dough while it was chilling in the refrigerator. Result was six baguettes with lovely crunchy crust and a tender, flavorful center.
One of my co-workers wanted to try some of the bread, so I brought her a baguette. She had some of it with butter and I asked her if she liked it. "Yes," she said, "it tastes just like bread from the store!"
That bad? Oy :(
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Which store and what kind of bread do you think she was talking about? It could go either way.
Rosalie
It sounds like a case of the tasteless co-worker to me. Not everyone appreciates the finer things in life!
--Pamela
She's an immigrant, from Tonga and nothing like a gourmet. However, she lived in the Bay Area for a long time and used to buy French bread there, so I think I'm being compared to San Francisco commercial French bread. Which is better than a lot of commercial bread, but it still has something of a shallow, one-note taste.As I remember.
I thought that I noticed a difference between the bread I made with the KA flour and the batches that I made with General Mills "Better for Bread". I thought the KA bread had a more complex flavor. However, I could be fooling myself, trying to justify spending so much more for flour.
There is a big difference in my kitchen. My family prefers the KA hands down. So I use the General Mills bread flour for my starter.
It's just a matter of personal preference. Some people like escargot. The smell reminds me of burning tires.
When I finally got my nephew to eat my bread, about 12 years ago, his one comment was that the homemade bread had a taste to it where the 'bought' stuff did not. He now prefers whole wheat bread to white and it has to be homemade.
Boy, I don't have THAT problem here at work. If I bring a loaf in, it is all gone by 9:30.
I bring either Jewish Rye or SD. Noticed that most men like the Rye, but the ladies seem to prefer the SD.
Brought in a cake yesterday and it was gone by 9:15. Some one even left a nice note on the cake carrier!
I have been baking the 90 Proof cake (a verison of the Amish Friendship Cake) and I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like it.
Bob
Hi, just wanted to add in here.... I long ago made the switch to only King Arthur's. If that was not available, I would use Hecker's, but never the "big boys"' flour. My family has always insisted (and we are talking 5 generations worth!) that there was a difference.
ivy, ny
I gave a loaf of my whole wheat bread to my son to share with his new in-laws, Mexican immigrants who had lived in Albuquerque for a long time. He was embarrassed because they yucked it up about how it reminded them of Indian bread. (The Pueblo Indians here make big boules of white bread in hornos--wood fired ovens.) He was ashamed because they rejected the bread he had grown up with. His wife also wouldn't taste my home made cinnamon rolls because her mother worked at Cinnabon, and that was what she was used to. They have since parted ways, and he is back to begging me to make the cinnamon rolls.
I discovered long ago that you have to consider the source, and if people love Wonder Bread, it's a hard sell to give them a crunchy, flavorful loaf. I used to get annoyed, but now I'm very selective about who I give loaves to...
I also use various kinds of KAF and find them to make great bread.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, my husband was telling his boss that I was planning on baking him and his new wife some fresh bread as a housewarming present. They just moved into their new house and my husband was helping them move [he also had helped them remodel beforehand].
He was standing in their kitchen when he mentioned this to him, and my husband's boss replied, "Oh, we have a bread machine." :-\
So I will still bake them a couple of loaves, but they better not say it is just like what they make in their "machine"!!!!
Good luck with your co-worker:-)
M.