"But you are bakers, not scientists," Thomas reminded us as he finished explaining a graph of amylase activity and temperature. The whiteboard was covered with such graphs, as was the easel to its right. This science, he wanted us to remember, was a tool to add to our baking arsenal, alongside taste, smell, memory, and tradition. It could not define our work. At this point in the march of knowledge, a master baker still knows more with his hands about making good bread than do all the scientific publications combined. We were midway through a weeklong course titled Modern Bread Theory: A Scientific Focus, but because we were bakers, not scientists, we spent most of our days in the San Francisco Baking Institute's sprawling warehouse bakery, putting those classroom lectures into practice. I was lured by the science's apparent clarity. This view of wild fermentation, defined in pH, temperature, and well-understood enzymatic reactions, felt so readily masterable. I know, after all, now to read and synthesize scientific literature. It's what I was academically trained to do. But again and again, I watched Thomas put his hands on (or in) the dough to asses it's molecular workings through touch. "It's ready," he might tell us, "hurry." Or, "Turn the mixer up to second for a few minutes." Those hands, with their twenty years of baking practice, knew things I would never learn by reading. And besides, I'm not a scientist anymore. I'm a baker. Science, now, is not the end in and of itself, but a tool to better understand the practical workings of the world. Saturday Market Red & White, Mountain Rye, Vollkornbrot Bittersweet Chocolate and Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies Apple Cake Gingerbread Shortbread Wednesday Preorder WILD & SEEDY! Mountain Rye Shortbread Gingerbread See you soon!
Sophie Owner | Baker Good morning! I've been fussing with my recipes the past few weeks, working to improve texture and flavor. The Country Rye is now little lighter, and warmly scented with brotgewürz (bread spice made, in this case, from toasted caraway, anise, fennel, and coriander). The Mountain Rye is a little dryer and more sour- just enough so, I hope, to stave off future epidemics of widespread collapse. My old standby cornmeal and yogurt cake has been brightened with a tart-sweet layer of raspberry and rhubarb for spring. And half the nibby chocolate sandwich cookies are squeezing cajeta, instead of hazelnut cream, because I couldn't resist making caramel from the goat milk I got in trade at the last market. Plus, the Bittersweet Cookies are looking especially fine today. I'm never sure why, but sometimes they open into dramatic, beautiful cracks, and this is such a time. Yesterday's bake was long and productive. I was in constant motion, reaching for the next task almost before I'd completed the one before me. I couldn't quite imagine how I'd stayed busy for so many continuous hours, so when I got home I wrote out the day's schedule. If you'd like a glimpse into A Day in the Life of a Market Baker, TAKE A LOOK! And if you happen to have a background in production management, or are just a very organized person, and have ideas for how I might increase my efficiency and shorten my days, I'm all ears! Well, ears and aching feet. At Market Today Red & White, Mountain Rye, Vollkornbrot, Country Rye Bittersweet Chocolate and Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies Nibby Sandwich Cookies with Cajeta Chocolate Rolls and Cardamom Rolls Rhubarb Raspberry Upside Down Corn Cake Preorder Wednesday Pickup Red & White Mountain Rye WILD & SEEDY! Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies See you soon!
Sophie Owner | Baker We used a new Haggadah this year at our family Seder. It included, among the familiar stories and prayers, a few intriguing historical notes. My favorite, of course, was about bread. As the Gentiles among you may or may not know, Passover is the celebration of the Jews' escape from slavery in Egypt. During the week of Passover, more observant Jews than I eat only unleavened bread, or matzo, because, the story goes, our ancestors left in such a hurry there was no time for the bread to rise. The holiday is also the time for spring cleaning, when all traces of bread and flour are swept from the house, along with the dust of winter, to welcome a new season. But, I learned from our new Haggadah, long before the Angel of Death passed over Egypt, farmers in the Middle East were celebrating the spring harvest with Khag Ha-Matzot, the festival of unleavened bread. Old dough, made from the last year's grain, was thrown out, and a celebratory bread was made from the new harvest. The old dough would have contained the wild yeast culture, carefully nurtured over the course of the year, with a little dough held back each bake to innoculate the next batch, and so the festival bread, made entirely of fresh grain, was unleavened. The Jews incorporated this agricultural tradition of renewal into Passover's celebration of a people's rebirth. Passover ended last Tuesday, though, so don't worry. You can come sample today's bread and pastry lineup without guilt! Today at Market: Red & White, Mountain Rye, and Vollkornbrot (not smoky this week) Bittersweet Chocolate and Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies Orange Cream Raisin Rolls Cardamom Rolls with yogurt-rose glaze Bostock, made with orange syrup, raspberry jam, and hazelnut cream and the last of the Granola until I get a new batch of oats For Wednesday Order: Red & White and Mountain Rye Bauernlaib, a beautiful, Austrian rye boule Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies And I'm off to market.
See you soon! Sophie Owner | Baker There are many things to do with old bread. If it's not too hard, you can thin slice it and bake it with a little fat (olive oil, butter, lard...) to make crackers, or cube it up for croutons. You could even toast and crush it into bread crumbs, I suppose, if you didn't mind the unholy racket of your food processor. Or you can practice the peasant trick of adding leftover bread to soup, as with Italian ribollita. The last is especially nice in this wet, soupy season. But the most interesting of all the old-bread repurposings, I think, is to re-ferment it into a drink. Kvass, or kwas, or квас, is a slavic soda made from old bread. Actually, after digging deeper into the astonishing, meandering mind of Sandor Katz, I learned that kvass can refer more generally to northern European low-alcohol fermented drinks, like the beet kvass you might use for borscht, or lettuce kvass, which was once a common summer drink among my Ukrainian ancestors, before the shtetls were exterminated by the Holocaust (I'll admit, I'm skeptical of the deliciousness of lettuce soda, but am willing to try this summer when greens are abundant). I am far from a kvass expert, but if you'd like to try this strange and lovely drink for yourself, the general idea is simple:
On the new bread front, I'm baking Red & White, Mountain Rye, and Wild & Seedy this week. Order HERE by 10 am tomorrow for Wednesday pickup.
Happy Sunday! Sophie |
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