Boot Camp
Knowing that practice is the name of the game when it comes to anything, particularly bread, I designated the week before the CSB began as Bread Boot Camp. Designed as an all-out assault on my kitchen, Boot Camp tested the resiliency of my KitchenAid (which, haha, broke the following week), the ruggedness of my oven, the capacity of my refrigerator, and my own skill and fortitude as a would-be baker.
I will not be this detailed in further posts; this just gives you a sampling of what a typical boot camp is like for me.
Sunday Mission - 5 loaves of Multi-Grain Bread, 3 loaves of Anadama Bread
Write-Up: More work needed on the Multi-Grain Loaves; while inside they had a great crumb and excellent flavor, their outside appearance left something to be desired. Not ready for the box yet, another trial required.
Anadama Bread shows promise – great flavor, nice texture. Need to work on the rise of the loaf, but with another try can definitely go in the box.
Status – Accomplished, with caveats.
Monday Mission - 2 loaves of Honey Wheat Bread, 6 baguettes of Pain a L’Ancienne
Write-Up: Horrible, horrible honey wheat bread. Perhaps the CSB subscribers would like a couple of bricks to build a retaining wall with?
Pain a L’Ancienne still proves to be a great standby baguette recipe. Didn’t get quite the rise on it that would have been nice, but you can’t beat the flavor.
Status – 50% fail
Tuesday Mission - 12 English Muffins (2 batches), 12 Bagels
Write-Up: English muffins had all the recognizable flavor of traditional muffins, but were missing nooks and crannies. Tried a second time later that night; better but still lacking in the crooks and nannies. Time to test other recipes.
Bagels were good but flat. Need to be retested.
Status – 50% fail
Wednesday Mission - 16 Petit Brioche a Tete, 3 loaves of Anadama Bread, 12 Bagels
Write-Up: Brioche came out very well; ready to go in the box. Super-cute and made a killer bread pudding later in the week. Anadama is now ready for the box after adjusting to make loaf rise more. Bagels came out well, and in the review of a good friend’s mother “The best bagel I’ve ever had!” (and she had it 2 days later).
Status – Accomplished.
Thursday Mission - 8 English Muffins, 3 loaves of Pane Siciliano
Write-Up: English muffins cooked this time on the griddle only (versus being baked after their time on the stove-top) came out with the traditional look of English muffins, minus the cornmeal. Flavor was not as distinctive as the first recipe, but still very good. Time-consuming so should be retested to work out bugs. Pane Siciliano is a beautiful spiral bread; very good for sandwiches. Though it takes 3 days to make, the result is fab.
Friday Mission - 8 Dutch Crunch Rolls
Write-Up: Good, ready for the box.
Status – Accomplished
Enough bread baking, let’s cook some Indian grub. It was time to focus on our Indilicious Street Cart outing for Sunday. I got an apricot, apple and peach chutney going that night and canned it. So good, you should try it.
And that was boot camp. Tuesday night saw me a nervous wreck worrying that the bread wouldn’t be good enough…Wednesday saw me back at it, baking more bread than I knew what to do with…by Friday I felt confident and ready to take on the first week of subscriptions. Ah, boot camp, you kicked my butt, but we got to enjoy some awesome bread. Who’s cryin’ to their mamma now?
