First off, the bread my husband and I made was fantastic. Why I didn't take pictures, I don't know. In the future there will be pictures! I made a hearty wheat with sunflower & pumpkin seeds and he made a cinnamon raisin.
This was just practice before we talked with Jeff. We left for Michigan on the 6:20a Wednesday morning and came home about 11:00p Thursday night. What a whirlwind..but mission accomplished!
We went to Ann Arbor and sat in Jeff converted garage which made a nicely equipped kitchen while he made he loaves of bread. What came out of it is he's a great guy and is still open to us bringing the bread to California. He didn't quite give out "the recipe" but I did learn a lot from watching and taking notes. My job now will be to continue making bread to see if I can halfway capture his awesome bread and get myself more equipped in my own kitchen. We have some decisions to make but I am sure it will work out the way it is suppose to. I will either succeed in my mission or I will just end up a really good bread maker. Meanwhile, I am just ending my fall semester in web design and have been knocking myself out to produce a halfway decent website which is Becky's Bread of course!
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
December 2
Hello and welcome to my bread journey!
I am hoping that this is going to be a fun, informative road to go down. What I am going to attempt through these blogs is to capture the efforts made to get Jeff Renner's bread, named "The Best French Bread in Town" to San Diego and learn as I learn, bread and everything about it.
Just a little bit of history on Jeff. He was a stay-at-home-dad with a talent for making fantastic bread. He started at bake sales but people began to ask for them all the time. He realized he had the potential for an at-home business, went to the Farmer's Market and shortly had a mailing list of more than 200 individual customers. He picked up commercial accounts and sold his bread at various markets, which he still does today.
Chris and I are flying into Michigan on Wednesday to talk with him and if all goes well we will be flying home with a new recipe and the start of a new business. Cross you fingers!
I decided that I'd better get on the stick if I was to talk the talk with Jeff about his bread. I took a class from Kathleen Allenbach at the San Diego Artisan Bread School here in San Diego. It's a 6 hour class jam packed with hands on experience and the science of baking bread. It's the best chemistry class you'll ever take! When I came home with 4 yummy loaves of bread that I had made myself, everyone was duly impressed. Here is a picture of the group -
In about two weeks I will be taking my second class specifically for the art of making artisan breads. I can't wait!
So today I am going to take this new found knowledge and impart it onto my husband. We are making bread. Like Kathleen said, "you're first loaf will be about a $50 loaf of bread." She wasn't kidding! Going over to Bed, Bath & Beyond 3 weeks before Christmas on a Saturday is not the ideal time to go. But that is precisely what I did to get my supplies. Yesterday I came home loaded with pans, bowls, scrappers, electric scales, and all the rest. Last night I measured my amounts and made a Poolish and a Soaker. Wow, see how smart I already am!
Poolish - A type of preferment. Typically quite wet, an equal weight of water and flour with an extremely small amount of yeast made the night before with no salt.
Soaker - Seeds or grains soaked in liquid to soften, before adding them to the dough.
I will let you know how it goes today.......
I am hoping that this is going to be a fun, informative road to go down. What I am going to attempt through these blogs is to capture the efforts made to get Jeff Renner's bread, named "The Best French Bread in Town" to San Diego and learn as I learn, bread and everything about it.
Just a little bit of history on Jeff. He was a stay-at-home-dad with a talent for making fantastic bread. He started at bake sales but people began to ask for them all the time. He realized he had the potential for an at-home business, went to the Farmer's Market and shortly had a mailing list of more than 200 individual customers. He picked up commercial accounts and sold his bread at various markets, which he still does today.
Chris and I are flying into Michigan on Wednesday to talk with him and if all goes well we will be flying home with a new recipe and the start of a new business. Cross you fingers!
I decided that I'd better get on the stick if I was to talk the talk with Jeff about his bread. I took a class from Kathleen Allenbach at the San Diego Artisan Bread School here in San Diego. It's a 6 hour class jam packed with hands on experience and the science of baking bread. It's the best chemistry class you'll ever take! When I came home with 4 yummy loaves of bread that I had made myself, everyone was duly impressed. Here is a picture of the group -
In about two weeks I will be taking my second class specifically for the art of making artisan breads. I can't wait!
So today I am going to take this new found knowledge and impart it onto my husband. We are making bread. Like Kathleen said, "you're first loaf will be about a $50 loaf of bread." She wasn't kidding! Going over to Bed, Bath & Beyond 3 weeks before Christmas on a Saturday is not the ideal time to go. But that is precisely what I did to get my supplies. Yesterday I came home loaded with pans, bowls, scrappers, electric scales, and all the rest. Last night I measured my amounts and made a Poolish and a Soaker. Wow, see how smart I already am!
Poolish - A type of preferment. Typically quite wet, an equal weight of water and flour with an extremely small amount of yeast made the night before with no salt.
Soaker - Seeds or grains soaked in liquid to soften, before adding them to the dough.
I will let you know how it goes today.......
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