What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips? The white
emulsified vitamin enriched Kleenex available at the local supermarket is
not for this boy. CRAP!!!! The "bread" arrives in town as a frozen block of
emulsified chemicals and leavening agents, is defrosted overnight and flash
baked overnight and offered for sale for a mere $1.99/loaf. In 24 hours it
has the consistency of cement. Every attempt to grow grain here on the farm
has been met with failure. Both a Polish wheat called Kamut and a hulless
oat looked great but on closer examination, every wheat and oat berry was
skilfully removed by the rats leaving the plant otherwise intact.
My wife has demanded real bread made with grains grown here at N 45.51, W
77.71. Let us assume the problems with the rodents can be overcome. I need
some guidance as to how to produce the best possible loaf of real bread.
Real stick to your ribs bread like the stuff my momma used to try and make
but couldn't.

Farmer John

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:44:52 -0400, "Fudge" wrote:

What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips?

SF sourdough, hands down.

My wife has demanded real bread made with grains grown here at N 45.51, W
77.71.

You can make quite decent bread from store-bought flours, if the 'grow
your own' demand can be put on hold for a while. In fact, almost *any*
homemade bread is far superior to the supermarket variety (ick!).
There are infinite recipe variations, and it's very easy to tinker
with a plain, white bread by adding/substituting other
readily-available flours and grains. If you're a purist, health food
stores all have a large selection of flours. Even the common
supermarket carries whole wheat and rye, and perhaps a few more.

It seems kind of overkill to insist on home-grown grain (which means
investing in a grain mill, too) as the *only* step up from Wonder
bread.

"Frogleg" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:44:52 -0400, "Fudge" wrote:

What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips?

SF sourdough, hands down.

My wife has demanded real bread made with grains grown here at N 45.51,
W
77.71.

You can make quite decent bread from store-bought flours, if the 'grow
your own' demand can be put on hold for a while. In fact, almost *any*
homemade bread is far superior to the supermarket variety (ick!).
There are infinite recipe variations, and it's very easy to tinker
with a plain, white bread by adding/substituting other
readily-available flours and grains. If you're a purist, health food
stores all have a large selection of flours. Even the common
supermarket carries whole wheat and rye, and perhaps a few more.

It seems kind of overkill to insist on home-grown grain (which means
investing in a grain mill, too) as the *only* step up from Wonder
bread.

You can also buy the whole grains and grind them yourself.


--
Peter Aitken
Visit my recipe and kitchen myths page at www.pgacon.com/cooking.htm

Fudge wrote:
What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips? The white
emulsified vitamin enriched Kleenex available at the local supermarket is
not for this boy. CRAP!!!! The "bread" arrives in town as a frozen block of
emulsified chemicals and leavening agents, is defrosted overnight and flash
baked overnight and offered for sale for a mere $1.99/loaf. In 24 hours it
has the consistency of cement. Every attempt to grow grain here on the farm
has been met with failure. Both a Polish wheat called Kamut and a hulless
oat looked great but on closer examination, every wheat and oat berry was
skilfully removed by the rats leaving the plant otherwise intact.
My wife has demanded real bread made with grains grown here at N 45.51, W
77.71. Let us assume the problems with the rodents can be overcome. I need
some guidance as to how to produce the best possible loaf of real bread.
Real stick to your ribs bread like the stuff my momma used to try and make
but couldn't.

Farmer John



Until twenty or more years ago, really good bakery bread was difficult
to find in parts of New York City. Now, almost every business block
in residential areas has a bakery, super market or gourmet food shop
with a large assortment of wonderful breads and rolls.

Where do you live? I cannot imagine that a decent loaf of bread is so
difficult to find in your area.

Good luck if you are going to bake your bread. There really is
nothing quite as good as that.

I am going to give you what I learned at a King Arthur Flour show.
Make a poolish
1 cup of water "weigh it and it will be about 7.4 to 7.9 ounces"
By weight the same amount of white whole wheat flour.
A scant pinch of dry yeast. Truly what you can pick up with two fingers.
Cover and let sit 14 to 18 hours until there are large bubbles in the
poolish.
Put 1 cup of water in the poolish and move to a bowl.
Measure up 3 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour and this is the MOST you
can use.
Mix in the flour until you can lift the mixture from the bowl in one mass.
I use the King Arthur hand bread flour mixer. Wood handle round wire at end
to mix flour. I can't pronounce it or spell it but it works great.
Add just enough flour from the 3 1/2 cups to form into a ball.
Let rest and double in size then when you remove it from the bowl stretch
and fold the loaf in thirds onto it's self to form a ball..
You DO NOT want to punch down.
Do this 3 times rise and fold in thirds.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees place bread into oven on a stone and I use a
tank sprayer to spray the door of the oven to add moisture. I tried to pour
boiling water into a iron skillet that heated up to 500 degree f and it was
like trying to pour lava into a lake. Was not fun. That was when I decided
to get a 2 gallon pump sprayer for misting and it also works great on the
BBQ for flare ups.

Make sure you get a NEW BUG sprayer and use it only for water to mist your
oven.
Make until the internal temperature is 205 degrees F.
This recipe is on their web site and please check there.


"Fudge" wrote in message
.. .
What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips? The white
emulsified vitamin enriched Kleenex available at the local supermarket is
not for this boy. CRAP!!!! The "bread" arrives in town as a frozen block
of
emulsified chemicals and leavening agents, is defrosted overnight and
flash
baked overnight and offered for sale for a mere $1.99/loaf. In 24 hours it
has the consistency of cement. Every attempt to grow grain here on the
farm
has been met with failure. Both a Polish wheat called Kamut and a hulless
oat looked great but on closer examination, every wheat and oat berry was
skilfully removed by the rats leaving the plant otherwise intact.
My wife has demanded real bread made with grains grown here at N 45.51,
W
77.71. Let us assume the problems with the rodents can be overcome. I need
some guidance as to how to produce the best possible loaf of real bread.
Real stick to your ribs bread like the stuff my momma used to try and make
but couldn't.

Farmer John

Emil wrote:
I am going to give you what I learned at a King Arthur Flour show.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees place bread into oven on a stone and I use a
tank sprayer to spray the door of the oven to add moisture. I tried to pour
boiling water into a iron skillet that heated up to 500 degree f and it was
like trying to pour lava into a lake. Was not fun.

Only a moron would spray water into a hot oven... don't anyone else do
that... scalds are not fun. To add moisture to an oven begin heating
with a small metal pan on the lowest shelf. At the appropriate moment
dump a scoop of ice cubes (6-8 cubes) into the preheated pan... works
very well and is safe.

Fudge wrote:

What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips? The white
emulsified vitamin enriched Kleenex available at the local supermarket is
not for this boy.

While visiting with my wife's cousin in Switzerland we had the best bread ever.
It was from a 24 hour patisserie just across the border in France, near Geneva.
The bread was incredible, delicious tasty, nice texture, slight crunch to the
crust. It was fabulous.

Frogleg wrote:

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:44:52 -0400, "Fudge" wrote:


What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips?


SF sourdough, hands down.


My wife has demanded real bread made with grains grown here at N 45.51, W
77.71.


You can make quite decent bread from store-bought flours, if the 'grow
your own' demand can be put on hold for a while. In fact, almost *any*
homemade bread is far superior to the supermarket variety (ick!).
There are infinite recipe variations, and it's very easy to tinker
with a plain, white bread by adding/substituting other
readily-available flours and grains. If you're a purist, health food
stores all have a large selection of flours. Even the common
supermarket carries whole wheat and rye, and perhaps a few more.

It seems kind of overkill to insist on home-grown grain (which means
investing in a grain mill, too) as the *only* step up from Wonder
bread.

I make about 80% of our breads. There are very few commercial breads I
like. One I do like is Dempster's 12 grain multi-grain bread. In the
summer I make power sandwiches with it. I spread a little mayonnaise on
each slice, then top with mesclun mix, smoked tukey or ham, a light
squeeze of mustard, tomato slices, onion slices, and either cucumber
slices or sliced olives depending on the lunch meat. DH doesn't like
multi-grain breads that have any crunch to them but he will eat
Dempster's 7 grain bread.

Fudge wrote:

What is the best tasting bread ever to cross your lips?

Any bread from any decent bakery in France, Italy, Germany, the
Netherlands etc etc.

Running a close second, the breads I bake for myself LOL!

snippage

Farmer John

Can't help you with the grain growing however. Can you buy decent flour
where you live? Perhaps at a Co-op? Or other 'whole/health foods' place?

"Emil" wrote in message
news snip
Preheat oven to 500 degrees place bread into oven on a stone and I use a
tank sprayer to spray the door of the oven to add moisture. I tried to
pour boiling water into a iron skillet that heated up to 500 degree f and
it was like trying to pour lava into a lake. Was not fun. That was when
I decided to get a 2 gallon pump sprayer for misting and it also works
great on the BBQ for flare ups.
snip
This works best if you have a tea kettle with a long pouring spout. You
also want to have the preheated skillet positioned at the front edge of the
rack so that you don't have to reach into the oven. There are also silicon
mitts available now that will protect you from burns. Your sprayer should
work o.k. if you're quick and don't open the oven door all the way -- too
much heat is lost that way and you are already spraying with cool water.
Another thing to think about is just spritzing the loaf with cool water
immediately prior to putting it in the oven. Make sure that whatever
steaming method you use does not extend beyond about 10 minutes because it
will interfere with the crust browning properly.
Janet

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:44:52 -0400, Fudge wrote:

The white emulsified vitamin enriched Kleenex available at the local supermarket is
not for this boy. CRAP!!!!

This invites a real debate: Do we eat Kleenex, crap or something
else?

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 11:40:26 -0400, Margaret Suran wrote:

Where do you live? I cannot imagine that a decent loaf of bread is so
difficult to find in your area.

I agree. It's easy to find good bread in most urban areas. Can't
speak for "unurban" areas though.

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 16:37:44 -0400,
wrote:


Having moved to FL from western PA where good fresh made italian bread and even
factory made bread from Cellones was available I figure something similar would
be available in FL. BZZZZZZZZZT! WRONGO!

The local chain does make some nice fresh breads, but doesn't make italian, just
those stupid cuban bread and baguettes. I just don't care for cuban bread, and
baguettes are not my thing either, but will do if I want fresh made in the store
by a baker bread. Their sour dough is good, but not sour enough for me.

Buns, don't even get me started. NONE of the stores here know what a kaiser roll
is, and what they label as them, PFFT! Garbage. If I ever find a good German
store that makes its own brochen look out as the place will not have any to sell
to any one else.


Sounds like you need to move back to where you came from. Obviously
you can't appreciate the local product - no matter how good it is.

On 6 Jun 2005 14:01:01 -0700, Sheldon wrote:

Only a moron would spray water into a hot oven... don't anyone else do
that... scalds are not fun.

Dear Dad,
I agree scalds are not fun, but you can call me Moron because that's
what I do and I will continue to do it. I've done it for 20 - 30
years - the only way the fine mist from a spray bottle could scald me
is if my hand was in the oven while I'm spraying… and I'm not so sure
it would happen then either.

To add moisture to an oven begin heating
with a small metal pan on the lowest shelf. At the appropriate moment
dump a scoop of ice cubes (6-8 cubes) into the preheated pan... works
very well and is safe.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Thank you all for the advise. The best advise is to go to a heath food
store and buy some organic wheat and give it a try. Then I will know if the
effort involved in growing the grains will be worth it. I agree, a well made
loaf of bread is a thing of beauty. A little story follows.
In medieval Europe, if you were rich, you lived in a nice home, had a
lawn and ate white bread because the costlier white flour was a status
symbol. If you were poor, you had no lawn as crops grew around your
residence, your domestic animals lived downstairs and you ate black bread
from the wheat that grew around your house. Today, everybody eats white
bread but we all know bread made with whole grains is much better for us.

F.J.
"sf" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 6 Jun 2005 09:44:52 -0400, Fudge wrote:

The white emulsified vitamin enriched Kleenex available at the local
supermarket is
not for this boy. CRAP!!!!

This invites a real debate: Do we eat Kleenex, crap or something
else?