Baking Bread and Teaching Latin

Common Ground

2009-04-23T17:18:59Z

Bath Cake Boutique products are now available at Common Ground - a very fun coffee house in Litchfield, CT!! Stop in and check them out - no shipping in person!

Support Wolverine Football!

2009-03-24T21:52:20Z

This Thursday at the Margaritas in Canton is a fund raiser for New Hartford Football. Come eat, drink & be merry! There is nothing extra to buy - just the regular menu prices, they are donating a portion of the night's proceeds. There will be raffles as well.

Come on out - a great time to be had by all!

OMG hax, I mean bread, I mean if you like bread just do this:

2009-01-26T04:02:30Z

When things changed rapidly so did our budget. I tried everything I could to quickly and immediately lower our expenses. One of those things was to start making bread. I refuse to have hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup in our house so the whole wheat potato bread that fits those requirements than I normally bought being 2.89/loaf ... put it on the chopping block. I've tried a number of bread recipes, some really quite good. But most are messy, time consuming and don't last that long in terms of freshness. It was all rather cumbersome.

Until.

Now.

I found this recipe. It allows for you to make enough bread dough for many loaves in a minimal amount of time and then let it sit in the fridge for weeks ... when you want bread take it out, shape, let it rest for 40 minutes then bake for 30 minutes. Once you master the basic recipe and bread making method you can then use the dough also for pizza, sticky buns, etc.

I was skeptical.

I've made it 3 times since yesterday. The recipe says that it will last many days after baking. I don't think I'll ever get to test that theory, everything I've made so far has been devoured immediately.

So... this is what I did. Note you need a pizza stone, a metal pan like a broiler pan, and a pizza peel

Take the water and heat to around 100. (I nuked mine for about a minute), put it in a 5qt bowl for a stand mixer (my standard KA mixing bowl worked for both versions) with salt and yeast. Let the yeast start doing its thing but you don't have to wait for it to completely dissolve. Using a 1 cup measure lightly put flour in it and level with a knife - do not pack. Put a cup of flour into the mix and put it on the mixer with dough hook. Add rest of flour one cup at a time. Do not knead. Dough should be wet ... you're making a wet dough. Cover loosely (not with a towel) and let rise 2 hours at room temperature. Recipe says you can let this step go up to 5 hours without adverse effect. My first batch I did 2 hours, the 2nd batch I did about 3 because we were out. Recipe says at this point you can use the dough but that they recommend refrigerating for at least 3 hours. I refrigerated. You keep it in the fridge covered but not an airtight cover. When you want bread, generously put cornmeal on pizza peel. Take the container from the fridge, uncover, sprinkle top with flour, remove a grapefruit sized piece of the dough cutting with serrated knife. Shape it to the shape you want and place on pizza peel. Sprinkle top with flour, make 1/4 inch slashes in dough on a diagonal or tic tac toe to allow bread to expand. Let sit 40 min, may or may not rise at this point, don't worry about it. 20 min through this wait, put pizza stone in center of oven with metal pan below it, heat oven to 450. With a flip of the wrist fling dough onto stone when ready to bake and quickly pour a cup of hot water into pan below. Bake 30 min or until dough is brown.

If you want a sour dough version, when your dough is done, do not wash container, simply add more dough. The scraps left behind become like a 'starter' and lend that sour taste to the dough.

Great you say, I never gave you the measurements for anything ... that's because the recipe really gives 2 sets of measurements and says that batch should make 8 loaves total ... I'm not sure which set of ingredients is supposed to make 8 loaves. I made the small one first (one is just double, it all makes sense) and it made 2 good sized loaves. I made the 2nd one 2nd and it made one gigantic loaf tonight (dinner party!) and I can't quite tell how many more I'll get out of what's still in the fridge.

Basic recipe:

3 c water
1.5 T yeast
1.5 T coarse sea salt
6.5 c unbleached flour

This one I mixed as described in my KA mixing bowl. I loosely covered with saran wrap and all was good.

13-6-3-3 method:

6 c water
3 T yeast
3 T coarse sea salt
13 c unbleached flour

This I mixed as described in my KA mixing bowl and then transferred to a large pot with cover. It is very important you do not use an air tight lid on whatever container you use -- it will explode.

That's it! Fabulous bread!!

Oh .. and the recipe says this costs about 50 cents a loaf.

Here's my photo journey:

Getting ready

Dissolving yeast

All mixed up:

Loosely covered:

I don't have a pizza peel ... I will buy one because this recipe is just that good I tried both a cookie sheet (the kind with no sides) and a glass cutting board -- I do not recommend either, both were very hard to use:

What was left behind to put back in the fridge after pulling out some:

Heating stone with pan underneath

Round shaped loaf with flour sprinkled on top:

Loaf with cuts:

My pizza stone came with instructions to use corn meal on it, the recipe did not say to do this, but I did it anyway, didn't seem to change anything

Loaf transferred to hot stone:

All baked:

On the chopping block

Ready for serving

Yum!!!!

I'm sure I'll be trying out the other recipes for this dough as well ... will let you know how it goes! :)

Welcome to Bath Cake Boutique

2008-01-16T02:42:39Z

I sent this email out to nearly everyone I know. I would also like to extend the offer to everyone here as well.

Welcome to Bath Cake Boutique – a new, whimsical approach to bath and beauty products. On the menu is a sumptuous selection of Bath Cakes, Soapy Cakes, Body Butter, Bubble Cakes and so much more!! Each is hand-crafted, fresh, and made to order from the finest all-natural ingredients. Just how you would make it if you had the time.

I hope you will take a few moments to look at these exciting new products at www.bathcake.com.

Each gourmet, spa quality product is a one of a kind that makes a great gift and is even better to keep! The menu of items at Bath Cake Boutique lends itself particularly well not only to holiday and birthday gift giving occasions but also make unique, fun favors for showers, weddings, parties and corporate gifting as well.

If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear from you! As always, if you prefer not to receive updates from Bath Cake Boutique, simply let us know and you'll be removed from this list immediately.

To welcome you to the Bath Cake Boutique family, a special offer awaits -- your choice of any Bath Cake -- free with any order!! Limit one per order; offer expires February 29, 2008. Please indicate in notes of order which scent you would like in your free Bath Cake.

Sweet bathing!

Erin

Bliss

2007-11-26T04:03:34Z

I let Blissful Skin die when I got sick because I just couldn't keep up with everything. In a strangely wonderful coincidence I got an order out of the blue from a complete stranger (all my regular customers have been friends or friends of friends despite my marketing attempts) while I was in the hospital for the surgery. I refunded the money and sent a note of explanation when I found out about the order & payment.

Anyway, the very lovely msbyn placed a very substantial order for Christmas. It rekindled the fire. :) I'm very thankful. :)

In any case, I am going to be making product from now through Christmas and will likely be back in full swing after the holidays as well. If there is anything you'd like from Bliss, please feel free to email me (emfsullivan@gmail.com) and I will get back to you with current pricing and availability.

And of course ... I am working on some brand new recipes/products. We will be testing them here soon and msbyn the ever wonderful tester will hopefully be soaking away as well as development once again gets underway!