Dedicated bread oven so as to not destroy my new domestic unit. Dual top and bottom elements (no steam device unfortunately but we know how to make that)
For size reference the top photo has a 45lb bag of flour on top. This gives a human perspective below. Also for additional reference I have abnormally long arms -
Heres attempt 2 at the croissant/ canele that, should it eventually work out - well you saw it here first ;)
Since last week where I spontaneously decided to stuff some canele molds with left-over croissant lam, I realized there might be something interesting here. So this week I decided to do a true blend of canele batter and the dough. What I had hoped would happen is the batter would encase the dough and sort of creep up the sides of the mold in a capillary fashion. Instead it (the batter) just kind of settled ultimately creating a canele cap. You can see this in the pics.
Another goal this time was to do more of a koign Amman style dough (hence the upside down photo showing the coin effect) whereby I heavily sugared the roll of dough. This is due to the fact that last week as I bit into the first creations I just felt this needs to be sweeter. That part worked. The flavor is much better than attempt number 1.
Not sure if I want to continue pursuing this but will give it some thought and see what might evolve.
One thing that can frustrating with croissants is having nice crumb towards the periphery but a hollow and collapsed interior. One way that can help reduce this is to cut a 1/2 slit in the base of the triangular cut out. I think the original purpose of this slit is allow for wider loaf since it promotes lateral rolling motion widening the loaf as it rolls up. A nice benefit if this technique is for whatever geometric, physical reason I at least will see far fewer cases of cavernesque crumb. Just a little tip / observation for other croissanteurs out there ;)
On a pastry kick. For those of you who love to laminate and work with brioche doughs, I always have about 1-2 croissants worth of off-cuts which usually get balled up and baked along side the croissants then promptly cursed and thrown out. This is what they 'monkey bread' it's just quasi laminated waste. So today I decided to stuff it into canele molds. It's a bit of trip since they look like canele but taste like kouign aman. This has got thinking of some interesting ideas from here. Main thing to note here is that all the dough went to good use !
New oven and equipment salvaged from the baking cocoon. Will try and treat this guy with some love - so will start with croissants. Dough mixing begins tonight ;)
Greetings peeps ! Been a little while and miss y'all. I been on hiatus piecing my life together after this proverbial s#!+ hit the fan with my biz and getting back on track.
I wanted to pop a thread and see if I can get some thoughts. Bottom line is that I'm in need of a new oven but not sure what the best course of action is so here we go -
Mise-en-scene :
- lonely gas oven sits in an appliance cocoon after years of abuse including at 2 points catching on fire.
- soon to be empty cavity where the oven used to reside. Gas only outlet. No 220 nearby
- me staring at the kitchen scratching my head
Options.
1. Pay electrician to run 220 to kitchen. Replace with electric oven and accompanying gadgets such as stones and steam generation.
2. Replace with conventional gas oven and then get a real bread oven and put in in say the garage.
I'm leaning to option 2. But what I really want is a mini deck oven not a rofco.
figured a few tricks - these are browning evenly every time now with zero muffin top / bottom. Will follow up with some more pics of the process for those interested ...
