We are hesitantly stepping into summer here with an uncertainty not characteristic to our nature as an organization (or so I like to delude myself, anyway!). Sharon and I (Kate is still home with babays!) have changed up production schedules, paired back summer hours, tried to keep hiring to a minimum. Now all we can do is wait and work and hope the people come! We were light on orders this week, so it gave us a little time to go over processes and make sure everyone is on the same page. This can sometimes be painful... if there is no agreement on what the ultimate outcome should be, then it's tough to work out a consistent method (fotunately, this doesn't happen too often). With that, we're continually messing with the Mayo formula (should it be thick or thin, garlicky or not-so? it's endless...), though I think we're almost there with the help of some new reading material. We also came together on the white cake recipe...Sharon was using only egg whites and finishing it by hand, while I was using whole eggs and using the mixer for the entire process. The whole egg yolk formula (the cake on the left) defintely won out for overall texture and flavor while the all egg white cake was drier with a finer crumb.
I have to say, too that these cakes, as are all of our pastries, are made with Morebread Unbleached White Flour from Pendleton Mills in Oregon. I have, at times, subbed in part pastry flour or used all cake flour and neither produces as moist of a cake as the Morebread. This has also helped us keep flour costs in check ,during the big hike in prices we started buying Flour by the pallet, so keeping things simple was the only way we could afford to do it!
One good thing is, I think I have met the mulitgrain challenge...our most popular bread by far, producing an 80# batch each afternoon seems to be enough! My other challenge was getting my Cinnamon Raisin Swirl to...well SWIRL! Looks like I finally got it...
Up Coming Events:
The Dirty Rags(Irene, Ben and Haven) had their first performance of the summer opening for Camp Awsome (Atz Kilcher and Jane Ferman's new band) last night at the Down East Saloon. This was just a warm-up for what we hope to be a fun summer full of music.
Also Greg Brown plays at the Mariner Theater Sat May 30 at 8pm (whoa, that's tonight!)
one more thing to put on the weekend schedule:
The Kachemak Bay Kitefest is this weekend check it out
2 comments:
Things have been slow on The Spit as well. So slow in fact that the local spit population is excited about the Time Bandit store.
"Slowest May Ever"
"Even if June, July, and August are great this summer will be a failure, A May this bad can not be recovered from."
"I am already looking for winter work"
These are some regular quotes this week. What has been normally been a fun thing to make fun of and and poke about the Time Bandit Frenzy that was observed yesterday as Jonathan arrived on the Boardwalk at his new store was absolutely ridiculous and surprisingly welcome. (half hour wait to say hello) We were ripping on that store all week until we saw what kind of activity Jonathan could bring. It was a mad mob.
Pendleton mills are OK, but please drop these guys a line: Federation Flour Mills
they'll help you out.
Post a Comment