Do you bake bread?

I used to be a rare bread baker.  That changed this summer when I started to do the farmers market.  All of a sudden I was making bread twice a week.  When I started selling at the market I didn't have much for produce yet so baked goods were my way to have enough things to offer for sale.  There were other bakers at the market and other breads for sale.  I wanted to find my niche in the baked goods area, offering something different from the others so I made white bread as buns and small loaves and French baguettes.  Both were familiar breads.  I wrote about the baguettes here.

my baskets of breads at the market

My older daughter also has an interest in bread baking.  When she made known that interest she began to amass a collection of tools that she would need.  I helped with that. She has a beautiful cookbook on bread making that details what they recommend for baking fabulous artisan breads. A trip to the restaurant supply store for the bench scraper and cambro box for proofing that were on her Christmas wish list last year and a few treasures found while thrifting since have been my contribution.

She gave me my baguette pan for Christmas a couple of years ago and I have a couple of thrift store treasures that have found their way to my kitchen gear stash.  I am, after all, a gadget girl.  And I am also a cookbook girl.  During the market season my mom bought me a bread cookbook and my daughter sent me my own copy of the cookbook that was her inspiration.  Both are a treasure trove of information and recipes that I am excited to try.

the cookbook from my mom

cookbook from my daughter

After a couple of shoppers at the market asked about gluten free offerings I decided to try my hand a gluten free breads.  We do not have any family members that are gluten intolerant so it was not something that I had ever done but it was a need that none of the other market vendors were attempting to fill.  Gluten free baking has its own learning curve and its own specialty ingredients.  I love a baking challenge.  I have had some successes and some repeat customers.  I have one that I will be baking for even now that the market is done.  And that will be fun.

Each market day I would make baguettes and buns and little loaves and sometimes I would try something new.  A couple of times I used my Pullman pan or pain de mie.  It is a rectangular pan with straight sides and a cover.  The bread raises in the pan and the cover keeps the loaf from having an arched top.  The loaf makes squared off slices, kind of like the shape of commercial breads available at the store.  The pans come in two sizes and mine is the smaller one.  The bread is perfect sliced thinly for appetizer toasts or fancy tea sandwiches.

Pain de mie

I also tried my hand at focaccia.  I thought it was good but best fresh from the oven. Probably better to make and eat than make and sell the next day.

Another thrift store find just recently was a baking cloche.

It prompted me to get out the new cookbook and try my hand at an artisan bread.  There is a lot to learn and I started with a prefermented bread. A prefermented bread requires the making of a starter so it is not something that is done spontaneously.  I started my starter, called biga, on Saturday and baked my bread on Sunday.   I have extra biga in my fridge so I will probably be baking bread again over the next couple of days.  The bread that I made is a white bread, using only all purpose flour, but it has a slightly different taste and a little darker color.  It tastes great both fresh and toasted.  I baked a baguette from a baguette recipe using the biga.  Instead of baking on a stone I tried my baguette pan.  It turned out nice.  I also tried two artisan breads.  One recipe but one-half baked under the cover of the cloche and one-half baked in the cloche bottom without the cover.  The recipe was for one loaf but it was a fairly large recipe and my cloche is supposed to hold dough made from three cups of flour and mine was more than that. Both breads were good but the covered bread and the baguette had a chewier crust.  The baguette had a pan of water for steam in the oven and the cloche created steam from the moisture in the dough.  The unsteamed version had a softer crust.

All in all it has been great fun.  I will be sharing the recipes soon but in the meantime I will be sharing this post with Susan at BNOTP here.

    

A few recent thrift store finds

I think I may have written in the past about how my sister and I got addicted to thrifting.  The story, in a nutshell, is that we started searching out treasures for my daughter who was contemplating starting a dish and decor rental service.  I don't know that I had ever been to a Goodwill prior to that time.  Now we have a whole group of stores in several towns that we shop often or sporadically.

My sister and I  have different things that we collect so we are rarely in competition.   I like white dishes of any vintage.  She loves silver platters.  I like sets of vintage china.  She collects small plates and bases and glues them together to make cupcake stands.  Kitchen gadgets are a thing that we both like.  I have not ever bought an article of clothing at Goodwill.  To be honest, there are parts of the store that I have not really even wandered through.  But I can spend an hour in the dishes and the home goods.  And the fabric/linens.  And a quick walk thru the pictures for interesting frames.

We believe that the reason that we find great stuff is that we shop regularly.  The great stuff rarely stays on the shelf for long and if you happen to be in the store when it happens to be on the shelf, that is when the magic happens.  Our closest Goodwill is in a slightly larger nearby town.  I think it is rare that a week goes by that we don't stop in.  I don't think that we have ever left empty handed.  Our Goodwill store generally has pretty good prices.  But we rarely pay full price.  If you donate, they give you  a coupon for 25% off your purchase. And on Wednesdays seniors get 25% off.  And one day a week a particular color of sticker is 75% off.  And sometimes we happen to be in the store when there is a special sale, like yesterday when everything was 30% off. 

Last week I found this.

The pattern is American by Fostoria. My mom was given this pattern.  It was passed down to her from her mom or her grandmother.  I don't remember her receiving it but I remember her having this pattern while I was still at home.  Her grandmother died about the time that she was a newlywed or within the first year or two of her marriage.  She has several sizes of glasses, a wine, a champagne coupe and a cordial as well as a water glass and serving pieces.  Over the years her collection has slowly expanded as we have added a few pieces here and there when we happened upon them at an antique store.  Since we have been hitting the thrift stores the pace has quickened.  We seem to find a piece or two quite regularly.  The pattern seems to have lost some of its value.  I remember paying $50 for a bud vase years ago in an antique store and now many of the pieces are less than $20  at replacements.com and $5-10 and usually less at Goodwill.

This pitcher was priced at $2.99 but we purchased it with a senior discount.  Just so you know, Goodwill's senior discount starts at a very young 55 years and my sister and I barely qualify.  Replacements has the same one priced at $70. And then, just yesterday they had one more at the very same price so we bought that one too.  Now she can have a pitcher of ice water at each end of her Thanksgiving or Christmas table.  Mom generally has her pieces displayed in a beautiful antique china cabinet and rarely uses them.  They are not a delicate handblown crystal but a sturdy one so this year my sister and I decided that we will help set the table and drag out many of her pieces.  I will try to remember to get some pictures.

I have written previously about my plans to convert my chicken coop into a bar.  My kids are game players and I am hoping that the bar will be a great three season place for board games and cards.  In anticipation of that project I have been picking up barware when I see it.  I am a little embarrassed to admit that I have quite a bit.  This is my latest find.  It is a hammered metal cocktail shaker and six glasses.

I have been researching them and have found some that are very similar with a different handle on the cover or a slightly different pour spout but none that match exactly, at least not so far.  It is always possible that at some point the lid was swapped with another..  The ones that I have read about online are usually described as being silverplate and in an art deco style.  These were priced each piece  separately with the glasses at $1.99 and the shaker at $6.99 all before the senior discount. I love the patina.  

I haven't done a whole table in quite a long time but still going to join the fun at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday here.