Re: Refrigerating Bread & Cakes

Posted by Gerard on May 29, 1997 at 15:22:21:

In Reply to: Re: Refrigerating Bread & Cakes posted by Fred on May 29, 1997 at 03:33:24:

: :Gerard wrote:
: :The other trick is refrigerate the loaf if possible, this firms :up the mie (crumb) and makes it more manageable, a fresh warm :loaf will wobble or flatten under pressure from the blade and :being held. At the least cool the loaf in front of a fan til its :stone cold.

: Sir,
: I read somewhere, think it was in a book by General Mills, to never refrigerate cakes uniced or bread, period. Not even subject it to a strong current of air, because it will cause moisture loss and subsequent staling. Maybe they are morons and don't know what they are talking about, since they also recommend the use of dough thermometers etc. to control fermentation.
: I learn so much from your postings, please don't ever stop dishing out your wisdom.It just shows me that I can't trust the establishment at all.
: Thank you so much. You are a wonderful pro.
: Peace,
: Fred Doyle, CPC

: P.S.: Does the pain (like in Pain De Mie=Crummy Loaf) has anything to do with the pain I get when my bread gets stale!?

Fred...

I wanted to thank you for your kind words (he's obviously confused methinks), Its a tough call using a thermometer for doughs. I don't but theres a place for them to establish the rate of fermentation. My brother was taught at tech school and whilst the instructor took them throgh all the steps of taking the temp of the water he said (the instructor)as an aside that none of them ( the instructors) bothered taking readings from the water.
They just do like most bakers and use ice water in summer and cool (tap water cool)in winter, if you have the experience you know what the finished dough temp should feel like, lacking the experience you need to check your judgement with the thermometer.

I find bread baking to be like pianno playing, its not how long you've been doing it , its how OFTEN you do it. You really need to bake every day to get the knack and keep it, my partner used to make the bread once a week on my day off, it was disaster.

Bread is like your fingerprint, its unique to you regardless if we all use the same recipe, yours will be like yours and mine will be different almost every time. Unless we go fully controlled automated etc, in which case the equiptment is doing the baking and we are mere operators.

Do you do much chocolate work?, is chocolate experience part of the cpc requirments?, the reason I ask is I'm waiting for a Hilliard tempering unit to be built and want to find someone to pepper with questions on molding etc.

Later..
Gerard @ Savoy.

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