April 22, 2013 - 9:10am
Hello from avocado capital of the U.S., Fallbrook, California
Just stopping in to say hello. I don't follow the books too much anymore, though I keep them on the shelf for posterity's sake. Most all of my baking is sandwich style bread, much like factory produced bread. Among other things, I like slices to be square, so no boule shapes, except when kneading or mixing. They fit better in the toaster oven that way.
No questions, just saying hello.
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that fit into the toaster. In Austria, we call any loaf baked in a box form for toaster slices, Toastbrot.
Hello, sorry to hear you're stuck in a
ruttoaster. Since you're from the avocato capital, have you tried making avocato toast bread? I have lots of avocado here in Chile.Welcome to TFL!
Many of the boules and batards, etc., made by members here are strikingly, visually beautiful. My freezer space is also square, and spare, and it's too time consuming to continually make and only eat fresh bread using the techniques I've found most appetizing, and to have a life doing anything else, so I make a couple loaves at a time, slice, bag, and freeze. I've been unwilling to use synthetic emulsifiers to cut time corners, so ...
To the avocado in bread question, no, only on bread (Yummy!). I particularly like wheat-germ bran bread with mayonnaise, egg, and sliced avocado. Many of my bread production decisions are made based upon financial economy, not because I want to, but instead as a budgetary matter.
Oh, no need to be sorry, the beauty of making our own, is we can each make our own decisions!
I would bet that avocados make a wonderfully rich sandwich bread! And probably light green! I wonder what kind of moisture content they have or what percentage they would contribute to a loaf? I wish I had an abundance of avocados here-they are usually $1-2 (USD)each here and often not edible.
According to the USDA, they are about 72% water and 15% oil by weight, though I understand oil content varies per several factors including variety and time of picking. It's an extremely healthy oil, from what I can ascertain, though info was sparse a few years back when I looked for it. The cost of water has been hard on local commercial growers since the 1980s, and they're now selling them in premium markets to recover their costs. After we moved here, county zoning closed down the roadside stand sellers, which was one of the attractions of moving here! My own avocados cost more to produce than to purchase due to water costs. So, you pay the grocer, while I pay the municipal water company: six of one, half dozen of the other!
I'd love to use avocado oil as the fat source in bread, but it's too pricey for me to use {shrug}, though maybe someday I'll try extracting my own oil.
or a nice ciabatta. Just add flour and yeast. ...or crackers! (that's an idea) I will play around a little... rye avocado crackers. My favorite is avo. on the half shell with a bit of fresh garlic, salt and a sprinkle of cider vinegar. Shiao Ping posted some recipes a while back. Going into the archives...
When I was a teenager, for two years we had 7 trees in our garden and would pick up the wind falls on the way to the house after school, put them into the fridge and take out the ones from the pevious day. Cut them open and pour cold thousand island dressing into the cold seed cavity and spoon it out like ice cream. :) We gave them away by the sack full.
Where are the archives?
I also love eating half an avocado, with a spoon. The little depression where the seed was makes for a nice holder for some kind of ingredient, though I like them plain. Fuerte is excellent for plain eating, though Hass will do. We have 8 young trees growing on about 500 sq. ft., a really tiny plot, sort of high density, which is not generally what the commercial growers do. From the time we cut an avocado off the tree, it very roughly takes 10 days to ripen. I leave windfalls on the ground, we try to pick them two or three at a time before they fall.
I was planning on working on a rye cracker recipe, and had recently obtained some dark rye flour. It hadn't occurred to me to use avocado in it, but it seems like a really appetizing idea. Avocado rye crackers, perhaps with some millet and sunflower seeds doesn't sound too bad! I tried making some soda crackers a few months ago, and found that rolling the dough with a rolling pin was just too difficult, as I used a low hydration. I have recently obtained a very cool double dough roller, kind of like a sheet-metal roller, but made for food, that's about 17 inches long, hand cranked! I bought a couple of them, but only need one. It should be great for rolling out cracker dough, or even pizza dough!
I'm pretty busy right now, springtime and all, and may have to delay that rye cracker experiment for a month or two.
That's the door to "The Archives." Just type questions and /or a bunch of words... Like: avocado, rye and see what pops up... :) I don't have a fancy roller, I got a schnapps bottle! I do have a hand mixer and a blender and lots of counter space and baking parchment.