I know you’ll be shocked and horrified by the following admission, but I can be something of a, well, snob. Especially where bread is concerned, I can be downright obnoxious. I turn my nose up at pretty much everything that doesn’t have a thick, crackly cust and a chewy, flavorful crumb (both hallmarks of long, […]
READ ONI think a big part of the reason that cookbook authors have favored stiffer, tigher doughs over the years is because home bakers tend to be less comfortable working with slack ones. Wet dough tends to be sticky if it isn’t well-floured, and that just plain flusters some folks. If there’s a trick to handling […]
READ ONI decided that my messed-with Peter Reinhart recipe was a little too weird to put up. Fortunately, my new favorite cookbook, Happy in the Kitchen has one that’s pretty darn good. I fiddled with it a tad of course (I can’t help myself), and here is the result. It works very, very well and makes […]
READ ONIt’s my opinion that if only a few people understood how easy it really was to roll a 2-ounce piece of dough, we’d have far fewer inferior buns in this country. Yet bun rolling and shaping continues to intimidate people. Well brothers and sisters, let me tell you I’m here to put an end to […]
READ ONSo what does it mean when a baker says a bread’s “hydration” is 80%? Of course it has to do with how much water is in the dough, but what exactly does “80% hydration” mean? It doesn’t mean the recipe is 80% water, since that would make soup. In fact it has to do with […]
READ ONVery wet bread doughs (up to about 80% hydration, or in other words, quite sticky) are very, very popular these days. Why? Well there are two reasons for that. The first is that wet bread doughs create big holes — or “open crumb”, a thing that is very much desired in bread baking circles, since […]
READ ONMake that a cheeseburger, since I like mine with a little extra-sharp cheddar… some lettuce, tomato, mustard and a little raw vidalia onion. The bun: toasted (over the coals, but of course). It’s unfortunate that when most people set out to improve their hamburger experience, the first thing they do is plop their patty onto […]
READ ONIt’s true I do cast a somewhat jaundiced eye at claims of gluten sensitivity, since just about every other child I meet is on a wheat or gluten-free diet as a result of some vague symptom. Of course for some people the symptoms are not so vague. Celiac disease, something akin to an allergy to […]
READ ONWe Americans are hung up on gluten. And not just because gluten sensitivity, along with pseudo-disorders like fibromyalgia and dysautonomia, is one of the more popular maladies du jour. Bakers obsess over it: is this flour high gluten or low gluten? As if the answer to that question will tell us everything we need to […]
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