Bread Glory Shots

Here is the bread i made on friday, shining brightly in the morning light! I arrived at 4:45 and left at 9:30. I absolutely adore arriving early, when it's still dark and I'm all alone and free to listen to music...or Twilight or Harry Potter audio books. Getting out of bed is tough, and it's kind of scary going to the storage garage in the dark and lugging a 50 pound bag of flour across the street, but once I get the dough going, I don't notice the time until others start arriving around 9, and I snap my computer shut so they don't hear what I'm listening to.

For our country loaf, the ingredients are flour, water, yeast, salt and olive oil.

This is the massive mixer that kneads 50+ pounds of dough for me. Every time I make bread I clean it out, and every time there are 3 little screws at the bottom, which I take out and put in a grove on the top in case some body needs them. Then the next time, they're back in the bottom of the bowl. It's like someone wants there to be screws in the bread. On Monday I just went ahead and threw them out.

This was the dough for the honey wheat bread (Carol Kroeger recipe). It swelled to the top of the bowl before I had a chance to form loaves with it. The restaurant is always very hot in the morning, and the temperature makes the dough rise like whoa.

Here I am making hundreds of little rolls. The rolls are so much more work...I kind of hate them. But they are nice to eat. After cutting the 2-3 oz pieces, I let them rest for a few minutes before shaping them.

This is the rack where they bread trays go. Behind it is the oven.

Ah! The finished product! I like my baguettes all rustic and bulgy like this.

The honey wheat boules turned out very pretty and very delicious. The customers won't know what hit em!

All those little rolls...I think I figured I made over 400 of the little buggers. Instead of slicing them with a knife, I usually snip the tops with scissor, which gives them sharp little noses when they're baked.

I love this. I love making bread.

I've been working on a sourdough starter all week, so look for some sourdough bread soon!