Yesterday, I accidentally went to Wyoming. It's not as carbon footprint-shameful as it sounds... the state line is closer to me than Denver is, after all.
I had a day off, it was a gorgeous day, and I decided to head to North Park. As an aside, "park" here in Colorado, at least regionally-speaking, means a valley in the mountains, a relic from the French word used by, well, French trappers back in the day. I live, technically, in Middle Park, and North Park is just over the Continental Divide from me, while South Park, to the, duh, south, is the setting for the Cartoon Network show of the same name.
So, anyway, I headed to North Park, which reminded me of Central Asia -- miles and miles of high steppe with snow-capped mountains glistening on all horizons. I really liked it, and kept seeing interesting rock formations and such until, next thing I knew, I saw this sign:
Wiley and I hiked a bit in Routt National Forest, right on the state line, where Sir Smalls decided to chase a marmot nearly over a cliff:
In other news, training for my triathlons this summer has begun in semi-earnest. I went swimming at the Y for the second time in a week today. I would go cycling and hit the trails on foot, but we keep getting snow! Another foot is expected in the next 36 hours. Anyway, today at the pool I learned an interesting fact: the lifeguard told me I couldn't wear my flip-flops from locker room to pool because everyone had to be barefoot. I said I wasn't willing to risk athlete's foot and he said "I know, I felt the same way when I moved here from Indiana, but I found out that no one gets athlete's foot here. The stuff that causes it can't survive at this altitude."
You learn something new every day.
In the little victories department, a couple weeks ago I asked Chef if we could get organic, cage-free eggs. He shrugged it off, but then, last week, when we got our food order in, I discovered that we had new eggs... from an organic, cage-free purveyor. Huzzah!
And finally...
Bread, as you may know, is probably the most scientific discipline in the baking and pastry world. At school, I was taught to calculate things like desired dough temperature based on room temperature, humidity, flour and water temp and even the "mixer friction" - the amount of heat generated by the actual mixing of the dough. My bread chefs were constantly tinkering with formulas (bread recipes aren't even called recipes... they're formulas!) to take into account new shipments of bread flour, the time of year, the phase of the moon, etc.
At Bullwinkle Ranch, I mentioned to Chef a while back that I'd like to start trying to do breads, because he currently buys them all par-baked and just finishes them in the oven for service. He shrugged.
Last week, a 50-pound bag of bread flour mysteriously arrived in house.
And Friday afternoon, Chef casually mentioned that he'd forgotten to order bread for the Saturday wedding so could I make dinner rolls for 150 people!!
Sure, out of the blue, with no time to tinker and take into account altitude, equipment and so forth, I'll just whip up 450 rolls...
Sigh.
The best breads are made with a preferment, such as a poolish or biga, which is essentially flour and water and a little yeast mixed 24 hours or more before you make the actual dough. This gives the bread better, more complex flavor and also a more desirable crumb, or interior. So I started by making a poolish for the next day, then tried to make a couple doughs that didn't require a preferment.
First, I took der Brotmeister's Sunflower Seed Roll recipe and scaled it down to fit our lone 20-quart mixer. To give you an idea of the scale, I'm used to making bread in a 40-, 60- or even 80-quart spiral mixer made specifically for bread production. Our mixer is a general, jack of all trades mixer with a low speed that's about the same as a high speed on a real bread mixer.
Sigh.
Also, we didn't have sunflower seeds, so I substituted pumpkin seeds and walnuts. The dough never rose like I wanted it to in the jerry-rigged proofer I made out of a hotbox and hotel pan of hot water, and it baked crazyfast (damn altitude!). At sea level, the rolls bake for 18 minutes at 440F... I had them in for 11 minutes at 400F and they nearly burned.
Sigh.
I also took a recipe for Zopfe (essentially, gentile Challah) and scaled it down and made individual Kaiser rolls instead of braided loaves. The rise was okay (I suspect a mathematical error converting the fresh yeast called for in the formula to the dry yeast we had on hand was the undoing of the Pumpkin Seed Rolls), but even lowering the oven to 375, the rolls baked too fast and got a thick crust before taking on color.
Sigh.
Saturday morning, I arrived at work to find my poolish had died. Because of the altitude, yeast's life cycle is accelerated, and I had no time to experiment to find the right time frame. I used it anyway, and it actually made a nice lean dough... but not a baguette dough. (By the way, "lean dough" just means it's flour, water, yeast and salt, as opposed to an "enriched dough," such as challah or brioche, which contain butter and/or eggs, sugar, etc.)
It was supposed to be a baguette dough, but I could tell it was too soft. God knows why. It could have been an error converting the formula, meant for an 80-quart mixer, to one that would fit in a 20-quart, it could have been the altitude, it could have been the mixer friction or the phase of the moon or seismic activity in Fiji... who knows.
I took the wet dough and made mini-Ciabatta out of it. Here's a shot of the ill-fated bread basket, my first attempt at baking bread at 8500 feet above sea level:
At least they looked kinda cute.
Sigh.
1 comment:
I think they look amazing for what you had to work with.
I'm impressed.
and hungry for carbs.
Post a Comment