Well, as my brother used to say, "what's it to you?" But since you asked... I have stopped buying bread and buns from the store, and the loaves I make are smaller than commercial loaves so we have no trouble eating them. The buns are a different story; I'm putting the better ones in the freezer and throwing out the duds. I don't throw food out in the yard for the birds because I don't want more raccoons and possums out there.
I keep all my bread stuff in the freezer because I just don't eat it fast enough to stay ahead of its expiration and I like having a variety on hand. I just wondered if the UPS guy and the mailman were getting free baked goods. Being single, I have a consumption-induced delay between my next iteration of making something (see, I share my life freely) so I wondered how you were able to stay on top of production.
Yeah, when hell freezes over. I'd like them to concentrate on doing their jobs for a change. Maybe I should use the "day old bakery items" to throw at them.
I have pretty much solved the storage thing. I learned to brush the soft loaves with melted butter as soon as they come out of the oven. The oily surface holds moisture in the crust and keeps it from getting hard. Then I bought some bread storage bags from Amazon and they work great. I have reused the same plastic bag 4 times now; I wash it carefully and hang to dry. So the pack of 100 should last me for a while.
Tomorrow and Saturday are gonna be rainy, so I'm gonna try my hand at ciabatta rolls again (recall that mine flatten out horribly.) I received the rings I ordered to keep them in shape while rising and baking...they're in the dishwasher now. I've got 2 ciabatta bread/roll recipes, and it looks like both recipes would be just as runny. The flour-to-water ratio (starter+dough) is exactly 2.0-to-1 for both of them. My favorite Italian bread recipe's ratio is not quite as thin at 2.2-to-1, and I have to put those finished loaves in a French bread trough pan to rise so they don't ooze flat. We'll see if I can fit all the rings on my Breville's pizza stone, or if I'll be firing up my oven and using my larger stone.
Woo hoo!! More Adventures in Bread Making!! I made a loaf yesterday so I'm not making any bread today, but I am going to make a pound cake later. Hope the rings work out, John.
I just pulled the rings out of the dishwasher. I can b-a-r-e-l-y fit all 12 on my large stone, and 7 on the Breville stone (6 on the circumference and 1 in the center.) I'll scale down the recipes to make 6 rolls...that's about the right number for me, and they won't take up a ton of freezer space.
I was just looking at my pound cake recipe... 6 eggs, 3 sticks of butter, and 8 oz cream cheese. Must be a low-cal version.