Baking

Much more to follow, but to get ready:

UUmmm… I just had an amazing scone. Candied ginger, lemon zest and blueberries. Wow! That was a lot of work, however, this is the most delicious scone I’ve ever had. If you’re interested in the recipe he got it from the food network website.

OR - better yet, use this guy:





Preheat oven to 420 F degrees

10 oz biscuit flour (sifted)
4 oz sugar
2tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
zest 2 lemons or oranges
4 oz frozen butter pieces
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1/2 sour cream
1/2 cup milk

Blend dry with butter using fingers, keeping butter in the size of green peas.

Fold in 1 1/2 Cups of blueberry's that have been frozen and coated with sugar as soon as the colour starts to run, stop. You can also add candied ginger.

Spread out on parchment paper covered baking sheet as a round blob. Spread melted butter over the top and sprinkle a generous coat of large grain, raw sugar (demarle sugar). Place in hot oven. Wait 5 minutes, turn down oven to medium heat, (350ish). Bake another 20min or until center is at 180 degrees. Take out and wait 20 minutes. Enjoy.

* Biscuits flour can be replaced for self rising flour and take out the sodas.

* Leave sugar out and you have biscuits.

Bread

Flower:
Bread Flower – 4g protein per ¼ cup
All Purpose – 3g Protein per ¼ cup
Soft Summer Flower – 2g protein per ¼ cup
Self Rising Flour - comes with salt and baking powder

**** If you’re going to go to the trouble of making bread with self rising flour make sure your flour is not too old because it’ll loose its rising potency.

**** You can’t use self rising flour if the recipe calls for yeast.

Simple Bread Dough:

Flour (1,000g) (King Arthur is the best)
1 % yeast (10g)
2% salt (20g) – Celtic salt is ideal
65% Water = French bread
75% Water = Ciabada bread (go with bread flower)
50%-55% Water = bagels

Adding sugar to the dough elongates shelf life

Adding oil increases flavor but decreases crust crunch

Cooking Temps:

Flour, water, salt, yeast: Cook at 500/550 degrees then lower to 400/450 degrees (Fahrenheit not Celsius) after steaming.

With fats, sugar or eggs: needs to be closer to 400 degrees

In order to increase the rising power and the crust crunch – (French style breads)

Before preheating your oven place a cast iron skillet at the bottom of the oven. Right before you’re going to add the bread, carefully add a boiling cup of water to the pan. This creates steam which keeps the crust from forming in an ultra hot oven allowing the dough to rise quickly. You want the oven steamy in the begging and dry in the end. You can get this by cracking the stove with the end of a spoon for the last 5 min. This creates an extra crispy crust.

FYI - Cast iron can get hotter then you can heat it. You could place it in the middle of a camp fire and it wouldn’t crack. BUT if you put cold water in it, you could crack it.

“Ear”- the hard crust at the top of the bread (achieved by lightly slicing the dough sideways before placing in hot oven) This allows the bread to grow quickly without tearing.