The Thoughts of a Baker

Yup! I did it!

2010-10-17T00:17:00.000-05:00

I finally purchased SBI!! Instead of greek pastries I decided to write a website on flatbread. You can check it out at www.flatbreadbaking.com

I so excited to start my new website!!!!

I've Gone M.I.A.!

2010-10-09T02:31:00.000-05:00

So yeah... I haven't been updating! I've kind of gotten lazy, so I haven't been baking or blogging -well that was at least until today. Yesterday morning -ahem... 9 o'clock!- I got all four of my wisdom teeth extracted, so no eating solid food for a while (a long while)! By solid food, I mean simple pastries or even a crispy loaf of bread. Because of that I've given up cooking and, even worse, baking for a while. Oh how am I going to survive? Other than that, I have some great news!

I've been working on awakinging a frozen sourdough starter, but I haven't had good luck. There are some reasons why but after the weekend, I'm going to work on another one. By the time I can eat solid food, my sourdough will be up and awake. I plan to do a couple posts on my method to sourdough!

I am also working on two other websites. One will be about Greek Pastries and another will be a new website for this blog. Awesome huh? I've became infatuated with Greek cuisine so I'm darn excited to share my knowledge with others! I think I will use a nice wordpress site for this blog. So anyway, I'm super excited and a little drugged as of now!!!

Keep checking back for more info! ...Oh and pray for a speedy recovery as I can't go this long with out BREAD! AHHH!!!

France + Butter = One Delicious Cookie (French Butter Cookie)

2010-08-10T00:07:00.001-05:00

Butter and France go together like a cuppa hot masala chai on a white winter night. Ahh, butter! What's better than butter? Butter, flour, sugar, and eggs mixed together into a fattening and buttery treat!

What is the treat that I'm talking about? Well, they're called punitions. They are basically a French butter or sugar cookie that Lionel Poilâne is so famous for. (You can read my old post about Lionel) Going into his old Parisian shop you'll see a basket full of them for customers and window-shoppers alike.

The story behind punitions is so fun. Lionel's grandmother would hide a stash of punitions in her hands and would call Lionel as if he was in trouble. She would smile and give him a cookie. Punition in French means punishment. Lionel also once said that it is a punishment in itself to wait for them to cool. I just cheat and eat one hot. ;o)

These cookies are absolutely amazing, especially for being made of only butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. If you've tasted one you might have mixed feelings on how hard it is to make some, but they are simple and easy to make. And without a leavening agent you might think they become hard and stale, but they don't. They're too laden with butter to become hard!

Here is the recipe for punitions, and you will be shocked on how tasty and easy they really are.

Les Punitions

makes around 50 round cookies

1 1/4 sticks [140 g] quality unsalted butter, at RT (room temp)

1/2 cup [120 g] sugar

1 egg, at RT

2 cups [280 g] all-purpose flour

You can use this method or the volcano method to make the dough

Cream RT butter and sugar together in a bowl with a pastry blender. Add in the egg and blend. Add in flour and blend/knead until smooth. Let it chill for 3 to 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 °F (180 °C).

Flour surface and pull out chilled dough. Break the dough in half. Working with one, roll out dough (you might let it sit for a while or knead it to soften) to 1/8 or 1/4 inch thick. Cut out into rounds (size is up to you!). I used an old wooden biscuit cutter. Put cookies on parchment paper lined cookie sheet(s). Bake cookies for 8 to 10 minutes. Don't worry, they should look pale! Let cool and store. While the cookies are baking, repeat with the other half of dough or freeze it. They have enough fat that they would last a week or so.

Yes, butter! The world would be dreadfully bland and incredibly skinny without it.

In the words of an old Dutch proverb, "Eat butter first, and eat it last, and live till a hundred years be past."

Become One with the Dough

2010-07-22T22:21:00.001-05:00

The one thing that separates a newbie baker and a master baker is their ability to sense the dough. What I mean is knowing the proper balance of liquid to flour. Oddly as it might seem... If you learn to become one with the dough then you can throw away your measuring cups and scales (to a point) and use your hands.

Many many many beginning bakers become too stressed over perfection. Perfection on measurements, time, and temperature, but the funny fact is that if you learn basic techniques then you've mastered the recipe. Now I will admit when you bake things like cakes or sweet pastries, you might want to be a bit more of a stickler on perfection.

"Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again" -Julia Child

If you are use to savory cooking, you know you can wing a recipe and get away with it. In baking that is not so much, but there are some tricks that you can use! I only use these tricks in bread baking, noodle making, and some easier cookie recipes (such as butter or sugar cookies). The best part is that you don't need a bowl; you can do it right on your counter top.

Dough Volcano:

Measure out your wet ingredients and make your wet mixture.
Add your leavening agents and salt to the wet ingredients. Make sure to measure them correctly! This is very important! If you are making noodles, you can skip this.
Eye-ball the amount of flour in the recipe and dump it on your table. Make it into a volcano and indent a well into the middle.
Pour about an fifth of your of your wet mixture into the middle.
Swoosh your finger (in the middle area) around and mix it with the flour that falls from the sides.
Repeat step 4 & 5 until you have used all of your wet mixture and have a sustainable dough (not too runny) . You can add more flour if need be to get the texture that your recipe has described. (ex: tacky > not sticky, ect)
Knead the dough according to your recipe.

Pointers:

Make sure not to destroy your volcano. It will take a while for you to develop a dough, but it sure beats just eyeballing and throwing flour and water into a bowl.
Your volcano will start to fall apart. No problem! Just pat it and push it inwards! It will bread sooner or later. If your mixture in the middle is sustainable, then go ahead and start kneading.

Hopefully this has helped you feel the dough. By using my technique you will have flawless creations (or at least close!). The real benefit of using this technique is that you will have a pretty close proportion of flour to wet mixture. It's also good when you are rigging your own recipe!

Lionel Poilâne

2010-06-13T07:00:00.006-05:00

It's strange that I haven't talked about Poilâne (Poi-lahn) at all! Along side Peter Reinhart, Lionel Poilâne is my other baking role model.

Lionel Poilâne, if you don't already know, was one of the most famous bakers. He inherited a small Parisian bakery in the Latin Quarter and changed it into a baking empire that centered around simplicity. Lionel actually didn't want to bake. He just wanted to live a normal life, but his father forced him to bake bread at his shop.

Lionel learned the trade and became a baker. What set him apart from every other baker was the simplicity that he put into his bread. Apposing the popular trend of baguettes, Lionel believed in true and classic French bread, the boule. Not only did he believe in classic bread, he believed in making and baking it right. He took quality French flour, Normandy salt, and water from his well and infused it with his humble sourdough.

Growing up in this, Lionel knew what was good bread, and he carried this into his business. Lionel was torn because he wanted to bake quality bread, but make more of it. Because of this, he revolutionized mass production of bread by inventing a bread manufactory. If you bread up the word you get manu and factory. Manu, Latin for hand, and factory. Each Poilâne loaf is made by hand --- let me repeat that --- by hand in one of his stores by one of his trained bakers in a classic brick oven.

Lionel Poilâne built his bakery and expanded it into England, but sadly on October 31 of 2002 he and his wife died in a helicopter crash. Their daughter, Apollonia, took on the business. Their boulangerie (bakery) still sits in the same place it has three generations ago. If you ever get the chance while your in Paris (you might think about bringing me!) stop by 8 rue du Cherche-Midi in the Latin Quarter and visit their bakery. You can also buy their signature Miche on their website (they ship globally).

Butter Crisis

2010-06-08T21:24:00.001-05:00

In this grand game we play of baking, the greatest battle ever is between butter and shortening. Butter is natural and just darn good, but shortening is easier to cook with and better suited for baking. With every baker you will find that there isn't a happy medium between butter and shortening; bakers tend to chose a side. My local bakery uses no shortening claiming that shortening is just bad for you. Really? Let's take a look at the two.

According to Wikipedia:

"Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying. Butter consists of butterfat, water and milk proteins.

Most frequently made from cows' milk, butter can also be manufactured from the milk of other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, and yaks. Salt, flavorings and preservatives are sometimes added to butter. Rendering butter produces clarified butter or ghee, which is almost entirely butterfat.

Butter is a water-in-oil emulsion resulting from an inversion of the cream, an oil-in-water emulsion; the milk proteins are the emulsifiers. Butter remains a solid when refrigerated, but softens to a spreadable consistency at room temperature, and melts to a thin liquid consistency at 32–35 °C (90–95 °F). The density of butter is 911 kg/m³ (1535.5 lb/yd³).

It generally has a pale yellow color, but varies from deep yellow to nearly white. Its unmodified color is dependent on the animals' feed and is commonly manipulated with food colorings in the commercial manufacturing process, most commonly annatto or carotene."

"Shortening is a semisolid fat used in food preparation, especially baked goods, and is so called because it promotes a "short" or crumbly texture (as in shortbread). Shortening is fat or lard from an animal or vegetable. The term "shortening" can be used more broadly to apply to any fat that is used for baking and which is solid at room temperature, such as butter, lard, or margarine. Shortening often has a higher smoke point than butter and margarine, and it has 100% fat content, compared to about 80% for butter and margarine."

So butter is made from mammal's milk with added preservatives with 80% fat and 20% liquid content. Most people like to use butter because they think it is more natural and has no preservatives. Unless you have a supplier that makes your butter fresh, butter is out of the picture for health nuts. On the other hand, shortening is either made from animal fat (like lard) or vegetable fat (vegetable shortening) with 100% fat content. I don't eat lard because it's just nasty, but vegetable shortening is ok.

But wait! There can be a happy medium between the two! If you haven't checked your local grocery store, there is a new (or at least new to me!) shortening that tastes like butter. It's called Butter Flavored Vegetable Shortening. Yeah, sorry, that was a no brainer. Butter flavored vegetable shortening is actually better for your baking because it is always at room temp and does not melt when you work with it. That might seem like a slight advantage, but it makes a huge difference! When you bake a cake, you can't afford your butter to melt on you! Not only is butter flavored vegetable shortening better for your baking, it tastes more buttery than real butter does. Creepy!

Here is how to use it in your baking.... Butter and butter flavored vegetable shortening can be used interchangeably, but there is a trick to it. Butter flavored vegetable shortening is 100% fat compared to butter, which is 80% fat. Because of this, when you substitute butter for butter flavored vegetable shortening, you need to reduce the amount of shortening by 20% and add 20% worth of liquid to the recipe. This is important because you can totally mess the measurements up if you don't do this. Also, some recipes might want your butter to be cold (like when you make scones), so take your butter flavored vegetable shortening and chill it in the fridge for a day or so.

Where to buy... You can buy butter flavored vegetable shortening at practically any grocery store. It should come in a tub or sticks.

Bread Shapes

2010-06-04T23:30:00.003-05:00

The shapes that bread has acquired over the years are as fascinating as--- well.... I don't know, but they're darn fascinating! Each shape is a testament to history and innovation of each culture and I would like to share some *basic* shapes with you. Later I plan on doing seperate posts to show you how to do each of them. Please keep in mind that these are the basic and common shapes.

Boule (Boo-l)

France really shaped the way we view bread, so most of our terms and names for bread come from French. Boule in French simply means ball. The boule shape is clasic French. In fact, before the French annexed the baguette shape, the boule shape was actually the most common shape for bread. It is not as popular as it once was because boule slices are not the same size, but they are great for being tosted and buttered.

Batard

This is also a French word. Sadly it's a cuss word in French, so I'll leave the translating to you. (Hint: add a 's') Most people call it the torpedo shape because it sounds just a bit nicer. The batard shape really has roots in Italy where the ciabatta shape is common.

Baguette

Despite what people might think, the baguette shape is not a traditional bread shape to France. It was really picked up during the world war era. Food Purists really dislike the shape claiming that the boule is much better and more traditional. The true history of the bread is really unknown, but it is said that king Louis XIV loved long skinny bread.

Sandwich Loaf

The sandwich loaf is very common practically everywhere! It was formed to make even shapes, which the boule could not. The name sandwich comes from the Earl of Sandwich, who in the 18th century ordered his servant to bring him two pieces of sliced bread and some meat. From there he put meat in the middle so that his fingers wouldn't get dirty while playing cards.

Braided Loaf

The braided loaves are always beautiful. The Jews are really credited with the shape with their challah (Ha-la). Jews eat this bread at certain festivals and holy days to remember the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. The shape take some technique, but when conquered--- sorry! I should rather say attained --- it is a great show stopper.

Authors@Google: Peter Reinhart

2010-06-04T15:16:00.010-05:00

I have to apologize for not updating in f-o-r-e-v-e-r! School and constant illness has gotten to me, and it wasn't fun. Just as a side not, I'm pulling A's! It's taken everything and more to keep focused, so the first thing to go was baking. It's summer now and I'm through being sick, so I'm back to baking and blogging. Although I'm not baking today, I want to show you guys a great lecture that Peter Reinhart did at the Google headquarters.

First before you watch it, I just want to tell you guys about Peter Reinhart and what he means to me. As an amateur baker I didn't know diddlysquat! I had no one to turn to to learn and discuss bread, really baking in general! I taught myself some tricks and techniques from simple recipes, but I wanted more. I did know about Peter and his many accomplishments and I always wanted his book, The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I waited practically forever for it until one Christmas. At that time my dad's hours were cut back extremely, so getting everything I wanted was picture. I didn't get a whole lot, but my prized possession was The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I really consider it a holy scripture (in a non sacrilegious way) because it has everything a baker needs to know and more to make artisan bread that is fit for the baking gods. That book really revolutionized the way I bake and it has formed my style of baking. Really, what makes the book and Mr. Reinhart so great is how they bridge together the world between amateurs and masters. I hope you will learn from Mr. Reinhart the way I have!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK5mC_SkIPI

My First Attempt at Danish Pastries

2010-01-03T14:24:00.011-06:00

So as my first blog post I have decided to make it big. My first daredevil mission is Danish pastries. *(This is where you yelp)* Really you might think, “Danishes! I get them from the gas station every morning.” If this is you 1) We have some serious health issues to talk about, because it would be easier to strap them on your hips and 2) YES THEY ARE PRETTY HARD TO MAKE! Well I guess they are not that hard, but believe me they can be pretty tricky…

Real Danishes (or at least these) are sooo much different than the ones you buy at QT (AKA Ouik Trip). The bread part tastes almost like a less buttery croissant, so to pull in that all around sweet taste you *must* have a great topping/filling. Fillings can range anywhere from cream cheese to apricot jam. For mine I decided to try out Joe’s Cream Cheese Filling. All in all his cream cheese filling was good, but I like my recipe for cream cheese (which is SUPER good). Note: I have a special article that I’ll post recipe for cream cheese filling and also blue berry filling. To me blueberries are bland, but this recipe makes them tangy and GOOD.

The Danish dough is extremely easy to make! I just gather my ingredients and mix them together and then knead/vigorously mix them together in the bowl.

The next step is to let the dough ferment for 30 minutes on your counter. After that pop it into your fridge and let it sit for anywhere from 2 hours to 3 days. I’m sure I would have got a world of flavor if I let the dough ferment in the fridge over night, but school starts in the next few days and I still have a huge list of other recipes I want to make!

So while the dough is fermenting, make your butter square. Yes… I said it. A square of butter… If nothing else it’s great practice if you want to pick up butter sculpting. Oddly enough I have seen two butter sculptures in my life. Start by taking 8 ounces of butter and pound them into a square with a barbaric club or if you don’t have one sitting around use a *solid* rolling pin. I would love to get into detail, but luckily for me and for you my friend Joe has posted a huge article about how to make laminated dough of which has a huge section about butter pounding.

The next step is to take the butter square and the dough out of the fridge. Since they were both cold, I let them warm up for about 20 minutes on the counter top. With that all done I did this fancy technique of taking out the rolled out dough and placing the butter on it and doing these fancy folds. Sounds easy! Right? Again… Check out his article.

The most critical step it the folding. This must be done to produce a flaky dough. Roll out the dough and get it longer than it is wide. Do a basic letter fold and pop it in the fridge for 20 minutes. Repeat 2 times.

So the folding should look like this...

Fold 1

15-20 minutes in the fridge

Fold 2

15-20 minutes in the fridge

Fold 3

15-20 minutes in the fridge

Now it’s all down hill from here! Just pull the dough out of the fridge and roll out to you specifications. For mine I did squares and put the filling in the center. Then I folded the corners in. Bake at 375°F for 15-20 minutes (I used a little more than 20 minutes). My folds were not tight enough so they fell apart in the oven. Oh well! They turned out great and my family and I were ecstatic to have *real* Danishes!

So for my first danish pastry, I think they turned out great. I think next time I might stick to something a little easier. I might also work a little tighter and press down my folds more. Now having more confidence in danish pastries I think I might now try something like croissants or pain au chocolate.

I want to say thanks to Joe from joepastry.com for the wonderful recipe! Take a look at his website for a world full of recipes he has posted, including his Danish Pastry recipe.