All Angles

How good is good enough? When do you stop fighting and just go with it? When do you toss the whole thing out and start from scratch? Came close, but not yet.

Talking about bread, and the realization that we've modified every formula we have in the past few months. Clearly better products are the result. I have to start with a note of thanks to Chad White, the Certified Master Baker at Udi's. Chad came into Hi*Rise on business when we first opened, and he's been a good friend and invaluable resource ever since. This is a man so into baking he can critique both recipe and technique by looking at a slice of bread, let alone tasting, smelling, or touching it. I describe talking to Chad about bread being like trying to drink from a fire hose. So my thanks to Chad for the many conversations we've had about bread.

Instead of a litany of changes, here are a few highlights.

Baguette - discovered that in our attempts to "age" the dough for a sourdough-like flavor, we were letting the yeast create acids that were making the crust too hard. Solution - fresh starter, shorter fermentation.

Pugliese - This bread has gone from the bottom rung to the top with the simple realization that it wants to be ciabatta. More hydration, a light touch, and plenty of time to rise have made this bread more popular than ever!

Buttermilk biscuit - somewhere along the way the original formula for this biscuit get adjusted to the point of being unrecognizable. We went back to the first version and got exactly what we wanted - a light, rich biscuit that melts in your mouth!

9 Grain - our most popular bread was having growing pains. Undesirable flavors and textures were creeping in even though we hadn't changed the formula. What to do? Again, it came down to timing. How long to soak the 9 Grains? Just long enough and not a moment more.

Upshot - keep it simple. The dough will tell you what it needs, just gotta have the right ears to hear.