May 7, 2014 - 6:18pm
How was it done?
First, if this isn't in the right category, I apologize. It seemed to me to fit with the artisan theme.
Short background, I'm looking for other options instead of purchasing a large stand mixer. It brought me to the following question:
How did bakers several hundred years ago make bread without a stand mixer?
I understand how to do it on a small scale, say 1 or 2 loaves. . . That's fairly straight forward.
However, how did they accomplish this when they needed to make 100 loaves? I can't imagine they kneaded the 100's of loaves for hours and hours...just doesn't seem to make sense.
Thanks,
-Peter
Share
The links were posted here on TheFreshLoaf. I think if you try searching "trough" it may pop. I think there was a similar discussion about this and bread troughs and bowls.
also have Baking apprentice 2nd classes, like I do, to do the grunt work and come up with all the great ideas that I also take all the credit for as well. She ca do all the back breaking leaning over the trough making 100 loaves at a crack. It builds character they say but my Lucy is incorrigible and just about useless in most things worth doing.
Happy Baking
They used wooden troughs and performed a series of stretch and folds to strengthen the dough during the bulk fermentation.
Here is a video showing the process
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmL1FhkdqUw
How many hundreds of years ago? Before bakeries were born, people made their own bread at home and did not need to make so many loaves; then came the community ovens to which individual homemakers/breadbakers brought their own bread to bake.
They just had to , they did not know it any other way, the same with other Jobs that we can not imagine doing without our Modern Mashines.
They had wooden throughs and did the kneading, e.g S&F in there in Bulk.
And PaddyL of cours is right, most people baked at home and came to the community ovens to bake their bread.
I believe the first dough mixers were made by the romans. Did a search and found the following:
source: http://www.bakersfederation.org.uk/the-bread-industry/history-of-bread.html
Roman Imperial bakeries in Ostia used animal and powered mixers. There's also an in-depth pdf if you want to know more, but suffice to say that their method are not what you'd want to use. The baker-owners are wealthy, but their workers led miserable lives.