The Crazy World of Appliance Shopping: About Convection Ovens

I'm building a new house, and it's really baffling trying to choose kitchen appliances. There are so many to choose from, it is hard to figure out what makes one better than another. I'm shopping for quality and performance without extreme cost. Unfortunately, the market is focused primarily on the "look", or on performance that millionaires might be willing to buy.

For example, refrigerators. GE has the "Profile" line, with a certain styling (and pricing). The high-end of that line has dual evaporators, which is good. But, if you look at their models that have no "look" name, you can get one with dual evaporators that is less expensive than the cheapest "Profile" fridge. But didn't you really really want all your appliances to be "Profiles"? I don't think so.

Another example: Thermadore, Wolf, Sub-Zero, $$$$$$$$$. End of discussion.

Ovens are confusing too. If you stick a fan in the oven, you get to call it "convection". If there is a third (hidden) heating element that the fan blows past, it is called "European" convection, and you get to invent a trademarked nick-name for it. If it lacks the third element, having only the upper and lower heating elements, it is called "American Convection" or simply "Convection".

My parents have an "American" convection oven. They tried baking pizza, and still had to turn it for it to cook evenly. It also "auto-converts" the baking time and temperature by keeping the full time, and lowering the temperature. How useless! They don't use convection at all now. Not all convection ovens are created equally.

Convection is only useful if it heats the oven evenly, and if your food is in a shallow pan exposed to the air. The real power of a convection oven is if you have multiple trays that you want to cook at once, like cookies or rolls. From what I can gather, it doesn't help for casseroles, or especially not for covered pans.

I really wanted to try a Trivection oven, but I couldn't find many reviews on it, and it is expensive. Also the controls seem a bit gimmicky. I found some super expensive convection ovens that sound amazing. Finally, I found an Electrolux and a Bosch that were more reasonably priced, rate well at Consumer Reports, and sound really great. I've chosen the Bosch because it is deeper; the Electrolux cannot hold my pizza stone. Ok, so I took a pizza box to the showroom (it was the same size as my stone), ignored the curious glances, and actually stuck it inside the oven. It was the only way to know for sure. Beware! There is a Bosch that lacks the third heating element; make sure to get one that has it.

The Bosch convection ovens have a "proof" mode, and a "warm" mode. So, with double wall ovens, I can use them as an oven and a warming drawer, or an oven and a proofing box. Twice a year, I may use them as two ovens.

My house won't be done for another 2-3 months, so for now I just get to imagine cooking in my new oven. That has me thinking; I don't know how to use one. Can I make toast in it? I'm not having much luck finding cooking tips online. Sounds like I'll be writing more entries to document what I figure out. I have used a portable convection oven for the pretzels, and it does make them rise better, brown nicer, and cook faster than at home, so I'm hoping for some great results.

The Secret of Bread Baking "Science"

I've heard people say that baking bread is a science, more like chemistry, you have to be exact about the measurements or it will fail. Not so! Some people try a few times, have the loaf fail, and then give up on bread baking altogether.

The real magic to baking good bread is learning how the dough should feel, adjusting the flour and water until it feels right.

One Christmas day, I accidentally doubled the amount of butter in my favorite yeast roll recipe. The dough was too wet; no surprise. I added extra flour until the texture felt right. The rolls were good as ever, and extra buttery too. Here are some tips to help the beginning baker find the perfect texture.

The Feel of a Nice Dough Ball

• Get a fresh bag of bread flour, and stick with one brand until you get a feel for the dough. Expect to adjust recipes if you switch brands. I recommend a white flour, like Gold Medal or King Arthur Flour's Bread or All-Purpose Flour.

• To learn the texture of good dough without an experienced baker standing at your elbow, you have to feel it. Look in the pan several times while it is kneading (assuming you're using a bread machine), and pinch it. Make this a habit. When the loaf is baked, how did it turn out? Beautiful? Or does the loaf look like tree bark? Think back to how the dough looked and felt. Eventually you will learn what a perfect dough feels like. Read on for more tips on what to look for in the dough texture.
  
• In the first few minutes of kneading, the ingredients should come together to form a ball that does not ooze all over the bowl/pan. Newly formed dough balls are overly sticky, and become less so as the gluten develops during kneading. After the ball has kneaded fully, it should be soft, smooth, stretchy, and barely stick to your fingers when pinched. The "troubleshooting" section, below, has some tips if this does not describe your dough.
  
• Pinch Test: If you pinch the dough ball, your fingers should meet little resistance until your fingers are about 1/2 inch or so from touching. At that point, you should feel a good springiness keeping your fingers apart. It feels similar to pinching your hand in the "web" between thumb and index finger
• If you roll a ball of finished dough on a clean, bare countertop with your bare hand (make sure your hands are dry), it should roll easily and slightly grip the counter without clinging to or sliding on the counter, and without gluing itself to your hands. It is pliable, springy, not like stiff knotted rubber bands, and yet definitely not oozing.

Kneading

• If you have a bread machine, use it for kneading and first rise. I often bake in the bread machine also. This is my lovely Zo (Zojirushi). After ~7 years, it sounds like it's wearing out; I'll definitely get another!
  
• A stand mixer with a dough hook, and some food processors will work also; Use instructions that came with the appliance. Kneading can be done by hand, if you have the time and inclination.
• Check and adjust consistency during the kneading process, before first rise, but after the ingredients have come together into a dough and have kneaded for a few minutes. The dough should form a smooth ball, somewhat tacky at first. A whole-grain dough will be tackier and rougher than a white flour dough.
  

Proofing

• To do the first rise in a bowl, use a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray. Spray the top of the dough, then cover with plastic wrap. Make sure there is enough room for the dough to expand. Let rise until doubled in a warm room, or a warm place over the oven. It will eventually rise in a cool room or even the fridge, but will take longer.

Texture troubleshooting tips

• When adding flour or water, add about one tablespoon at a time, and let it knead some before adding more. If it is very gooey, add two tablespoons.
  
  

  		Symptom	Suggestion
  		Dough is goopy, even after kneading; leaves sticky mess on your hands	Too wet; add flour
  		Dough clings and smears on the bottom of the bowl and fingers; does not form a ball	Too wet or gluten is not developed; knead some more, add flour if this doesn't help
  		Dough is hard to pull and shape, stiff	Too dry; add water
  		tight, looks like gnarled tree bark, not smooth
  		Finished bread has alot of stretch marks, looks torn or gnarled on top	Dough was too dry

Pretzel Class: What to Bring, What to Do

My kids' preschool teachers have asked me to do the pretzel class every year since I was crazy enough to do it the first time when my oldest daughter was three. This morning I did it for the 5th time. I send in supplies and instructions for the "Prelude" activities (some experiments with grain and yeast), which the teachers do with the children before baking day.

This is the main article, laying out how to bake with the kids. The recipe and experiments are in other articles.


Baking pretzels with my daughter's preschool class: Everything you need to take with you to the classroom, and the steps for turning the dough into pretzels. Includes exploration of wheat and yeast, and how they are used to make bread.

A couple of the girls pose with the class's pretzels. In one photo, the grain crusher/flaker is visible to the left. In the other, the "yeast buddy" is in the upper left.

Prelude Activities:

Prior to pretzel baking day, have the children do the following, if possible:

• Look at grain samples, and sprout some.
• Discuss the wheat life cycle, using a photo and the sprouts
  
• Crush some grain into flakes, and into flour. Separate flour from bran using the sifter.
• Have yeast blow up a balloon; a smiley-face balloon makes it a "yeast buddy"
  

Equipment:

• dough, ready to "punch down" at the right time in the class discussion; for a nice touch for the kids, use some home-ground flour in place of some of the regular flour, so you can tell them that it's in there.
• dough knife

  

• silicon mats for rolling dough on
  
• ruler
• pot
• measuring cup
• 2 Tbs baking soda
• burner
• whisk
• slotted spoon
• cooking spray-oil
• 3 baking sheets
• 2 cooling racks
• parchment paper
• pretzel salt
• 2 timers
• hot pads
• spatula
• paper towels
• foil
• pen
  
• oven, such as a portable convection oven, and baking sheets that fit in it.
• bowl of rising dough, timed to complete first rise as the class discussion starts; over-proofing some is ok here.
  

Discussion Props:

• a slice of regular bread
• a flour tortilla
• the "yeast buddy" from the yeast experiment
  
• a small bowl of flour, preferably including some that the kids made themselves, and a small cup of water, for making a demo dough ball
• sprouted wheat
• wheat life-cycle photo
  
• an already-made pretzel
• the bowl of pretzel dough
• access to the "stations", described below, for demonstrating pretzel baking steps.
  

Discussion:

Before making the pretzels, gather the kids. This discussion will tie together all of the activities the kids have been doing leading to baking day, and show them how to do the pretzels.

1. Remind the kids how they crushed grain and sifted it to make flour. Show them the wheat life cycle photo and the sprouts, demonstrating that the grain is also seeds.
   
2. Put some flour (preferably what they have made) into a bowl, add water, and knead into a small ball. They will be surprised to see the powder turn into a springy, stretchy ball.
   
3. Show them a flour tortilla, explaining that it is made of dough. Show them a slice of bread, and that the difference between the flat tortilla and soft bread is the holes.
   
4. Show them that you can make a balloon out of the small dough ball, by shaping it.
   
5. Talk with them about the yeast experiment, where the yeast in a water bottle eat sugar and blow up a balloon.
   
6. Ask them how they think you could get all those little holes into the bread. Hint about the yeast, if someone has not already guessed (someone guessed immediately today). If necessary, explain that if you put the yeast into the dough, they will blow it up, making the holes they can see in the bread, and that the yeast will also blow up the pretzels.
   
7. Show them the pretzel dough, in a large bowl, puffed from its first rise. Tell them this is the dough you made for them to make pretzels out of, and that it is already puffed up. Make sure that everyone is watching. Slap the top, and let them see it sink to less than half the size. Usually they find this pretty cool.
8. Show them a sample pretzel, if you have one, and say they will be making one today. Demonstrate rolling the rope, twisting the pretzel, boiling, and salting it.
   

Steps (Set up stations before the discussion):

1. Dough Station: Using the dough knife, cut dough into enough pieces for your class, up to 32 pieces. Place them on a sheet of parchment, on a cookie sheet. Get each child a piece of dough, after they wash their hands.

2. Shaping station: Set up tables with silicon mats, a ruler, and a copy of the pretzel-shaping chart, below. If the mats are large, two children may share a mat. I like to have room for four kids to work at once, with two helper moms.

Each child will roll a long rope. Use the ruler to make sure ropes are about 15", and use "pretzel shape" picture for shaping steps.

Some kids may mash the pretzels, or pick them up; this should be discouraged. The moms will need to coach most of the kids on how to roll the ropes out evenly and long. Roll the dough gently, starting with hands together in the middle, spreading your hands apart as you roll. For each child, cut a square of foil and indent the child's name in the foil with a pen. Spray it with the cooking spray. Take the foil and pretzel to the boiling station. Place any "extras" for teachers and helpers onto a parchment sheet, or sprayed foil.









3. Boiling station: Get six cups pf water boiling in a pot or deep saute pan. I prefer a portable induction burner. Whisk in baking soda. Next to the pot, have a timer and a spider/large slotted spoon. Also set up a baking sheet lined with paper towels, and a cooling rack on top. Spray the rack with cooking spray. Have extra water nearby to replenish as it boils off.
Boil the pretzels for 1 minute, placing up to four pretzels at a time in the pot. If you let the kids put them in, place the pretzel on the spoon and lower gently; don't splash the boiling water. Take care to remember which belongs to whom. Use the slotted spoon to scoop out the pretzels onto the rack, and have the pretzel salt ready to sprinkle on wet pretzels. Let the kids put on the salt after watching them boil, then place the pretzels on the named foil squares.











4. Baking Station: Preheat a portable oven (preferably convection) to 450. Nearby, set up a cookie sheet with cooling rack inside. Have hot pads, timer, and a spatula handy.
















Place the pretzels, foil and all, onto the oven's baking sheet. Fit as many as reasonable. Convection ovens can bake multiple trays at once. Bake until nicely browned on top, 12 min (6 if it's a convection oven). You may need to rotate the pans to get even browning. When done, use the spatula to move pretzels to a cooling rack.

Prelude to Pretzel Class: Yeast Experiment

This is one of the experiments that the preschoolers do before the pretzel baking day. It's fun, easy, and proves very clearly that yeast produces gas.

Blow up a balloon with yeast:

• Tell the kids that you have some yeast. Yeast is a fungus, like tiny one-celled mushrooms. They eat sugar, and "burp" air (CO2). The kids will laugh.
• Pour a packet of yeast into an empty water bottle. Ask the kids what plants and animals need in order to grow. They'll probably come up with food and water.
• Water the yeast: pour in 1/2 cup water.
• Next feed them: add 1/4 cup sugar.
• Swirl the bottle around to mix.
• Now catch the CO2, to prove that the yeast really makes some. Stretch a balloon over the top of the bottle. I used yellow smiley-face balloons, and the kids call it the "yeast buddy".
• The kids were very excited, expecting the balloon to fill immediately. The balloon started to stand upright in about 15 min, and continued to grow larger over the next few hours.
• For older kids, you could experiment with different amounts of yeast and sugar. Measure the balloon every 15 minutes at first, recording how quickly it grows.

Recipe for Pretzel Class (and just to eat): Soft Pretzels

These are definitely worth the trouble to make now and then, regardless of the pretzel class. Larger pretzels are generally prettier. The smaller ones made in the class tend to end up thicker, and sometimes will be doughy in the middle. Make an open pretzel shape, since the dough will puff when it boils.

2 1/8 cups room-temperature water
1 Tbs salt
3 cups Bread Flour
2 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 Tbs sugar
2 tsp non-diastatic malt powder or sugar
1 Tbs active dry yeast or 2 teaspoons instant yeast

pretzel salt

1. In a bread machine, add ingredients in the order listed. Run on "dough" cycle, adjusting water/flour during kneading to make a soft but not sticky dough.

If making for pretzel class, pull the dough out of the machine when it finishes kneading and enters the "rise" cycle. Place the dough into a large, greased bowl. Spray the top of the dough with cooking spray, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Keep in a warm place until you leave for class.

2. Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Roll each piece into a log, and shape the logs into pretzels. The picture indicates a 15" rope, which is appropriate for making this a 32-pretzel recipe. Longer is better for making 16 large pretzels.

3. In a large pot, boil together 6 cups of water and 2 tablespoons baking soda. Put 4 pretzels at a time into the boiling water, and cook for 1 minute. Transfer boiled pretzels to a lightly greased baking rack. Sprinkle with salt or seeds while still wet. Add more water if too much boils off before all the pretzels have boiled. Boiling makes the dough rise quickly, and changes the proteins on the surface. The surface becomes shiny and sticky, and has a different chew and flavor. The stickiness will diminish as it dries, so don't forget to salt right away.
4. When all the pretzels have been cooked, bake in a preheated 450°F oven for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the pretzels are well-browned. Yield: 16 soft, chewy pretzels.

Yield: 16 or 32

Serving Tips

Dip in melted Cheese Wiz, or mustard.

These old-fashioned "Philadelphia-style" pretzels are similar to bagels -- smooth and shiny on the outside, chewy within.

Recipe Source

Based on King Arthur Flour's pretzel recipe

Recipe: Challah Bread

Challah is a Jewish holiday bread. It is one of our favorites, especially on Easter. We usually save it for special occasions, since braiding takes longer than a loaf shape. The eggs and butter also make it a richer loaf.

Ingredients

Dough

1 cup water
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp salt
5 Tbs butter
4 cup bread flour
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp yeast

Topping

1 egg
1 Tbs water
2 Tbs poppy seeds

Steps

1. Prepare dough in a bread machine, and let rise once.
2. Shape dough as desired. The 6-strand is classic for this loaf. A three-strand braid is also nice.
3. Place braid on a piece of parchment, on a pizza paddle. Spray lightly with cooking spray, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until doubled (about 45-60 min).
4. Preheat oven to 350. Let it heat for at least 15 min, if not 45.
5. Brush top of loaf with egg wash (beaten egg & water), and cover with poppy seeds.
6. Transfer to baking stone. Bake for 15 min, then insert temperature probe timer. Bake until internal temp is 190-205.

Risen bread, just put into the oven onto a hot stone.

Experiment: Play with Dough

Gluten is a protein in wheat flour and some other grains. It is the gluten in the flour that gets nice and stretchy when you add flour and knead it into a nice ball.

Experiment:

Note: double up quantities if you prefer. The listed amounts are small so everyone could make their own. I did not try this with the class. My daughter likes to play with "bench flour" when I'm done shaping bread, but has trouble working it through the "sticky" phase and into the "smooth ball" consistency. It would probably be messy for preschoolers.

Equipment

• small bowl
• 1/8 cup flour
• 2 1/4 tsp water, plus more as required

Instructions:

1. Put the flour and water in a bowl. Mix them together with your fingers.
2. Knead the dough as it balls up, adding small amounts of water or flour, if necessary to form a nicely textured dough ball
3. Keep mixing, rolling, and mashing until it turns into a springy ball.
4. Flatten the ball out, and gently stretch it like pizza dough. Does it remind you of a balloon? Can you shape it into a bubble? Try blowing it like bubble gum, but with it on the outside of your lips. Then, seal off a bubble by pinching the dough together. Of course, now you'll have to pop it!

Lesson learned:

1. Flour kneaded with water creates a springy, stretchy dough.
2. Dough can capture air bubbles.
3. When coupled with the yeast experiment, you find that: Yeast produces gas. Dough can trap gas bubbles. When mixed into the dough, the yeast will make thousands of tiny bubbles in the dough. This is how yeast breads rise. Baking "freezes" the bubbles, which are visible if you look closely at a slice of bread.

Extras:

1. Kneaded dough becomes stretchy because the gluten molecules in flour link into long, stringy "rubber bands".
2. Careful rincing of a really well-kneaded ball will leave you with a ball of gluten only. However, this is tricky and messy, and I did not find that it really adds anything to the class.
3. Gluten is great for bread, giving it rise and bite.
4. Gluten is bad for cookies and cakes, making them tough and hard, and preventing "snap" and "crumble".
5. Fats interfere with gluten development. Working fats into flour before adding the water will help make more tender pastries and biscuits, but is bad for bread.

Prelude to Pretzel Class: Wheat Sprouts

This is one of my preschool pretzel class experiments to do the week before. What better way is there to prove that grain is a seed? Many whole grains from a health food store will sprout easily and quickly. Kamut and hard red winter wheat berries are a sure thing. Some other grains, like hulled barley, will not sprout. That's because the outer bran layers have been removed, damaging the seed.

Here are the sprouts after two days on a wet paper towel, inside a zip-lock. They have swollen with water, and you can see the roots fingering their way out of the grains. This Kamut® seed (my favorite wheat) is at least eight years old, and still sprouts like a champ.


A couple of days later, the paper towels grew mold spots, the roots grew through the paper towels, and I discovered that I didn't really know how to operate the camera. The photos aren't worth posting. I'm going to try again, with a different setup, and some camera instruction.

Six days after that, here's the wheat grass. You can still see the grain that the grass is sprouting out of.
I'll revisit this project with better photos, and hopefully a better growing method. The bowls go dry quickly, damaging the roots. The Montissori teachers just showed me a better way, which I will try. They put a folded wet paper towel around the inside of a clear glass, putting the grain between the glass and the paper towel. Extra water can be put in the glass, to be wicked up. The glass is open to air flow, hopefully preventing the mold. Also make sure to only use grains that look the most perfect. Damaged grains that do not sprout become food for mold.

Anatomy of a Wheat Berry, and About Gluten

Basically, wheat germ is the baby plant, endosperm is the plant food, and bran is the outer covering. White flour is the endosperm alone, and has a relatively long shelf life. Whole grain flour is the whole deal ground up, and has a shorter shelf life because the oils in the germ will go rancid.

It's funny; before I knew this, I had sometimes made bread with white flour, and added bran and germ to make it more nutritious. I had really just reassembled whole grain flour!

Left whole, the grain can last a long time. I just soaked some >8-yr-old grain two nights ago, and it is already sending out spider-like root fingers. I wonder how long the grain will keep?

Gluten is a protein in the endosperm. If you add water to it and knead it, the gluten will form stretchy, rubber-band-like strands. This is of course the friend of the yeast bread, and doom for tender baked things like biscuits, cookies, and cakes. The gluten acts like a bunch of balloons, which fill up with the gas produced by the yeast, allowing the bread to rise. Or, it acts like a tangle of rubber bands, making cookies, biscuits, and cakes tough and chewy. A good "bite" is essential for a bagel; it is bad news for chocolate cake.

Different brans and kinds of wheat flour have differing amounts of gluten. Off hand, the extremes seem to be King Arthur Flour's "Sir Lancelot" on the high side, and White Lily® Flour on the low side. Sir Lancelot: great for bagels; White Lily: great for biscuits. An All-Purpose flour will be somewhere in the middle, and work reasonably well for most things.

Gluten absorbs water. A higher gluten flour will require more water than a lower gluten flour to achieve the same dough texture. I think this is the main thing that affects bread recipes, not the humidity in the air, or the season, etc.

I always use King Arthur Flour for bread, because they test and maintain a consistent gluten level in their flours. Once I find the right amount of water for a bread recipe, it never changes, all year, and I live in the south. Our humidity is all over the place.

Whole-grain bread may be heavy because the bran cuts up the gluten strands, reducing their rise. Bleah. I say mix the whole wheat flour with a good white bread flour; get some benefit of the whole grain while still making bread that's worth eating.

Musing: Hard wheats are higher in gluten, and tend to grow better in the more Northern states. Soft wheats are lower in gluten, and grow better in the South. Bagels are very popular in New York; biscuits are very Southern. Accident? YOU decide.

Prelude to Pretzel Class: Wheat Life Cycle, Other Grains, and Gluten

Before I go to my kids' preschool to bake pretzels with them next week, the teacher is weaving "baking" into the daily work, by reading them related stories, and having them use the grinder/flaker. I provide a variety of grains to be squashed into flakes, crushed into flour, handled, and maybe sprouted. I'm not sure why some grains are referred to as "berries", e.g. wheat berries, rye berries, etc. Oats are called "groats". Go figure.

This photo shows the preschoolers the life cycle of wheat, helping them discover that grain is grass seeds. Sprouting some certainly beats a photo, if you've got the time; just put a few on a wet paper towel, inside a zip-lock. They will absorb water, and sprout in just a couple of days. I started three varieties going at home yesterday, to show my daughter and to get some pictures. They are already plump from the water. I hope to keep them going until they look like green blades of grass; one day maybe I'll grow some that I can harvest... Hopefully the teacher will sprout some too.

Images from here, here, and here.

It's probably waaay overboard, but I gave the class 13 kinds of grain to crush. Most of them can sprout, too.

It's normal to have a grain collection, right? Once I wondered why we make bread with so few, given how many varieties there are. With tasting comes understanding. Much as I wanted to love them all, alas, it was not to be. Also, many of them are too low in gluten to make a loaf; they can only be additions to a good dough.

Here's info I've collected on grain varieties. I'm probably missing some. Unless someone tells me that teff or sorghum really do something fantastic for bread (do they?) I probably won't try any more. Anyone have opinions to share?

My greatest discovery: Kamut®; great story behind it, and it tastes great, good for you, hypo-allergenic, and more nutritious than red wheat.
My greatest dissapointment: Quinoa; great story, great nutrition, native to America, I really wanted to like it, but, yuck; big time yuck; tried it again, still yuck.

Grain	Gluten	My Comments
Wheat	high	"Hard" wheats are high in gluten. People who don't like whole wheat often like the taste of white wheats.
rice	none	Haven't tried in yeast bread.
corn	none	A bread called "Anadama" calls for corn meal.
millet	none	It's very mild; it might give some texture to a loaf.
sorghum	none	I have never tried it.
rye	high	Not my favorite, so I haven't used it much.
triticale	high	I don't care for this grain.
oats	none	I like adding a handful or two, either rolled or steel-cut, to my bread.
barley	moderate	Apparently you can make bread from barley alone, but I have not ever tried. It's nice in soup.
teff	none	I have never tried it.
wild rice	none	Haven't tried in yeast bread. Just doesn't strike me as a great idea.
spelt	high**	I think this one tastes ok, but not as good as wheat.
Kamut®	high**	My favorite whole grain, even more than wheat.
buckwheat*	none	I have never tried it.
amaranth*	none	I like throwing these into yeast bread whole, for texture in the bread.
quinoa*	none	Reading about Quinoa makes me want to like it, but I just don't; tastes bad.
kañiwa*	none?	I have never tried it.
cockscomb*	none?	I have never tried it.

*a non-grass grain, or "pseudocereal".
**The gluten is different from wheat gluten, and may be ok for people who cannot eat wheat gluten; or so I understand.

Prelude to Pretzel Class: The Grain Flaker/Crusher

I'm doing my pretzel class once again next week for my youngest daughter's preschool class.

The teachers asked me to send the grain crusher (Marcato Marga Flaker) this week, so all the kids can have a go at it. We put it through its paces at home first. Here's my daughter showing how it's done.

One setting makes flakes out of oats, another setting crushes it into flour. Some grains will flake, others just crack. I have found that wheat cracks, and that spelt and oats will flake.
Kids find it fun to turn the crank, then feel the flakes or flour that falls into the tray. She wanted to try crushing all thirteen varieties of grain that I had.

To make it look more like the flour that most kids are accustomed to, use a fine mesh sifter. This will separate the bran from the flour. Doesn't she look serious?

I dumped the bran onto the paper towel next to the flour that we sifted out. The flaker makes a more coarse flour than you get at the grocery, but it is definitely flour. Feeling it is a must. The next thing I did was add some water to the flour and show her how it turns into a dough. That was good for giggles and playing with. She said it smelled good, and ate some of it.

The Intent of this Blog

This is about baking good stuff (mainly bread and cookies), and also about where some of the ingredients come from and how they work. Hopefully it will help a beginner to overcome bread baking failures, provide some interesting info and recipes to even a veteran baker, and explore things like how to use that same famous chocolate chip cookie recipe to make cookies that stand out.

This is also a place to share experience about equipment, ingredients, and technique, as well as "experiments". They say that double-acting baking powder will rise when mixed into a batter, and again later in a hot oven. On a whim, I added some to a cup of water. After it stopped foaming, I put it in the microwave. Sure enough, when it got hot, a bunch of bubbles foamed out of it again. Yep, that's double-acting all right.

I haven't entered any contests. However, a hot loaf of bread from the oven does not survive long at my house. At a party, someone once told me that my cookies were well worth the burn on my arm; "Thanks for taking one for the team". My oldest daughter thinks I should have a cooking show. :) I'm tempted to make marshmallows, just to see how that works...