Hi Everyone,
A few testers have caught errors in my gram conversions, such as on the sourdough starter for the SF Sourdough bread (flour should be 255, water should be 170 gr., and mother starter 85 gr.)). I must have been up late that night. Anyway, if you are working in grams please double check my numbers--there could be other errors as well. I multiply the ounces by 28.35 to arrive at the number of grams, rounded off to the nearest gram, but sometimes I might hit the wrong key. Another recipe with errors is the classic baguette dough (French Bread). The water should be 16 ounces (453 gr.), salt 14 gr. yeast 7 gr., and flour 680 gr.). Mea culpa! If you find any other math errors please let me know ASAP--thanks!
Good news: the laminated dough is ready for testing (Danish and Croissants). Again, only official testers, please. However, I am targeting Sunday, January 18th (the day the Panthers play the Eagles here in Charlotte, if my dreams come true) to open up the list to new testers. So if you've been patiently waiting, please check in that day and see if I've hit my target. My goal is to have all the recipes written up by then, with the modifications based on the first round of testing, and ready for new eyes (as well as our veterans) to try them out. If you do sign up, be forewarned that you will be starting with the basic Prefermented French dough, which is the foundational recipe for the book. After you've tested that one you can begin to request anything off the menu that I will post.
Okay, I will be posting one or two more rounds of recipes next week and then, check back on the 18th (I reserve the right to change this date if I run into some unexpected delays, but I'm hopeful I'll be ready by then).
Testers who are ready for the laminated dough instructions, let me know.
Happy Baking,
Peter
PS Anyone who wants to hear the show we did today on WFAE (Charlotte's NPR station) on biscuits, it will replay tonight at 9 PM and the should be posted by tomorrow on their podcast archives. Just go to www.wfae.org and navigate to Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins. It was a fun show, with Shirley Corriher calling in from Atlanta (her "Touch of Grace Biscuits" are pretty amazing), as well as one of the VP's of Bojangles, who is also a certified biscuit master and trainer in their system. Bojangles, for those who are "not from around these here parts," is Charlotte's famous chicken and biscuit chain with about 400 restaurants in the Southeast. They make their biscuits fresh, on site, at every location. They are probably as good if not better than any restaurant biscuit I've ever had.
