If the word itself sounds like a French-ified pronunciation of the Italian city of Genoa, then you get today’s cash prize (null and void in all areas). It is, in short, sponge cake of the type that the Genoese made, though it’s become phenomenally important to French pastry makers over the centuries. It is the […]
READ ONI’ve received quite a lot of feedback on this the last several days, from both physicists and bakers (interesting combo) from as close as Indianapolis and as far away as New Zealand. Oddly, no real consensus emerged among them, even within the (albeit small) groups. While it’s indisputably true that condensation (a heat-bringing process) occurs […]
READ ONA spate of reported génoise catastrophes — among the readership and even right here in my neighborhood — is forcing me to preempt my regular request list in favor of an emergency intervention. What can I say? Dramatic action is called for. Something must be done to combat the rising tide of crumbling sponge cake […]
READ ON…I’m pretty much done with the topic of baguettes anyhow. I have a few questions that I still wanted to answer, one in particular about whether it might be possible — if you really tried hard — to replicate a real French baguette in America. The short answer is “no”. The long answer is “still […]
READ ONComplaints have been filtering in about all the time and space I’ve devoted to baguettes the last…what is it…19 weeks? Don’t worry, all you folks out there who are tired of bread baking. I’ll move onto something sweet on Monday. I’m thinking sponge cake.
READ ONI rely on my audience of scientists and/or science buffs to keep me honest in all things technical (I was a Philosphy major, for pete’s sake). Regular reader Hans chimes in with this about steam and bread crust: When was the last time you stuck your face in a plume of steam to feel the […]
READ ONPauline down in New Zealand asked, since a brick oven doesn’t put out the kind of steam a baguette needs, whether I “spritzed” in the inside of my big brick oven. Indeed I do, but since my baking space is a couple of square yards, I need a bit more firepower than a squirt bottle […]
READ ONThat’s an excellent question, Paul C. from Montreal! I was planning on writing about that, back when I was running my fingers about Viennese ovens, but forgot. In fact steam does a lot of things. When steam settles onto a loaf of baking bread, it keeps the surface of the loaf moist and stretchy. That […]
READ ONI am, and always have been, a lard man. Thank God the rest of the world is finally catching up to me.
READ ONOf all the bogus baguette-origin stories I’ve heard, one stands out as being especially persuasive. The reason: because it’s so mundane. It tempts you to think: this is so un-exciting it HAS to be true. It goes like this: the aftermath of World War I saw an intense labor shortage on the Continent in general. […]
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