First, I think I am going to make a slurry of 1 cup of warm (80* F) water and 1 cup of flour. After mixing it well, I will let it sit for an hour just to make sure all the flour is hydrated completely. After that, I will add 1 teaspoon of yeast to each mixture. Again, I will mix fully and let set. I will then check every half an hour to see how the mixture is progressing. I think the winner will be the one that doubles the mixture first. Sound like a good experiments? Anyone have any other ideas to test the different kinds of yeast?

The recipe for baguettes requires one to make a Pate Fermetee and a Poolish.  These take a while to mature, so I suggest you wait until I publish Part II to start making your baguettes!

Pate Fermentee

Ingredients:

1. 1/4 cup 80*F water
2. 1/8 teaspoon yeast
3. 1/4 cup + 2 1/2 tablespoon flour
4. 3/16 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. Combine water and yeast
2. Combine salt and flour
3. Add 2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons of yeast water to flour combination (Save the rest of yeast water for poolish)
4. Let ferment for 3 hours at room temperature and refriderate

Poolish

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup + 1/2 teaspoon flour
2. 1/2 tablespoon yeast water
3. 1/4 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoon of 80*F water

Instructions:

1. Combine flour, yeast water and fresh water and mix well.
2. Let sit for 14 hours to ferment.

I love the fact that bread takes forever.  You can go to the store and buy your $2.50 baguette or you can slave over some yeast for 16 hours to get the same result.  Buy for some reason, bread you bake always tastes better!  Come back for Part II of making baguettes!

Searching the internet, I was not so lucky.  I found dozens of types of yeast out there!  What is a baker to do?

There is instant yeast, dry active yeast, cake yeast, compressed yeast… How is someone who doesn’t bake know which one is best?  I found two helpful resources online: Yeast in Breadmaking and Wikipedia’s Baker’s Yeast article.  But neither tell anything about which yeast is better for me!

Luckily for you, and me, yeast is cheap!  Therefore, I am not that nervous buying all different types of yeast from Amazon and testing them out.  I am going to go through rigorous tests to see if I can differentiate what yeasts are the best.  I can’t wait!

BUTTER BISCUITS

Ingredients:

1. 6 Tablespoons Butter
2. 2 Cups (290 grams) Self-Rising Flour
3. 3 Tablespoons Sugar
4. 2 Large, Hard-boiled Yolks
5. 3/4 cup Heavy Cream

Instructions:

1. Cut butter into small cubes and chill in freezer
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and place pizza stone on middle rack
3. Sift together flour and sugar together into large bowl
4. Add chilled butter cubes to flour/sugar mixture and blend with hands until mixture resembles course cornmeal
5. Add cream and work with hands to form dough
6. Knead dough just until combined and roll out to inch thick
7. Cut biscuits
8. Place biscuits onto pizza stone and cook for 5 minutes
9. Lower oven temperature to 375 degrees F and bake until golden brown

Once cooled enough to touch I cracked one open (they were dryer than I was expecting) and slathered it with butter. They are amazing! I love warm biscuits; I just wish the recipe didn’t require so much work that they are not a feasible morning batter.

I recommend these biscuit cutters!

The first real big purchase that I am going to make after reviewing The Bread Bible is a digital scale.  I have been told before that baking is really all about weight and not volume, and I have never really taken it to heart.  Though, after reading a few recipes I can see what they mean!  Everything is broken out by weight!  This purchase is not going to be an easy one.  I wasn’t looking into spending hundreds of dollars to get this project off the ground, but it might just be necessary.

The digital scale needs to have a 0.1 gram resolution to be useful in the baking world.  This increases the price of the scale tremendously.  The one that I recommend is the Escali L600 Scale.

The next major investment that could be purchased, however I do not think I am going to just yet, is a stand mixer.  Everyone has seen these at people’s houses, but who ever seen one used?  I feel that if you are going to get one do it right!  Do not buy the Artisan one, but the Professional Stand Mixer.  You will not be disappointed!

Another thing that you will need is a proofing box.  I think I am going to attempt to make one of these myself and will definitely be sharing how that goes later on.

Other things you might want to pick up, but I will discuss later:

• La Cloche Brick Oven
• Bread Rising Basket
• Baguette Pan

I have resently purchased the book, The Bread Bible, and it is my intentions to bake every recipe in it to learn how to bake properly.  And boy are you in luck!  I love blogging so I want to keep you all up on my journey to becoming a truely great bread maker.

Come back often, as I am going to go full force into learning how to make bread!  Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I am going to!