Volume 24 – Issue 1 spring 2016

In thIs Issue 2 Notes from the Chair

5 Guild News Selling in the Off-Season Cousins Across the Water Artisan Certification Program James Beard Semifinalists Formula Formatters Update Hello/Goodbye

11 What’s Old is New Kickin’ It Old School

14 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie 2016

28 Baking Reflections Redefining the Daily Loaf Baking for the Monks’ Table

33 Technical Article Defining Brioche Milk and Pear Starters

38 Baking History Dough Boys: US Army Baking in the World War I Era

42 Baking Reflections Gluten

Continued on page 14

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Bread Bakers Guild Team USA and coach hold a photo of themselves at the 2016 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. Left to right: Nicky Giusto, Jacob Baggenstos, Harry Peemoeller, and Jeffrey de Leon.

From Practice to Paris : Following Team USA to the Coupe

by James MacGuireGuild Member, Baking Instructor and Food Writer, Montréal, QC

James MacGuire, a well-respected baker and food writer – he translated Professor Raymond Calvel’s book, Le Goût du Pain, into English – was invited to serve as an advisor to Bread Bakers Guild Team USA at their practices. He narrates the story of the 2016 Coupe from an insider’s perspective and traces the team’s journey from Seattle to Chartres to Paris.

I realized within my first 10 minutes as a guest at a Team USA practice in Seattle in early December that I would never have been a suitable candidate for the team. The intensity was palpable, and the pace, relentless.

The Bread Bakers Guild of America is the leading American educational resource for artisan bread bakers. Our mission: to shape the knowledge and skills of the artisan baking community through education. Bread Lines, the newsletter of The Bread Bak-ers Guild of America, is published four times per year.

{ 2 } t h e b r e a d b a k e r s g u i l d o f a m e r i c a

Over the years, my collection of books has followed a path parallel to my career. Starting with cookbooks and moving to baking books, it now includes all of those and more. I am much more selective than I used to be and have gotten rid of quite a few, passing them on so others can get some joy from them. There is no replacement for hands-on learning, but books are a way to learn and see more than what is right in front of me. If, for some reason, I was forced to get rid of all but one, the one I would keep would probably surprise a lot of people. It’s not a flashy choice. Artistically, it doesn’t stand a chance next to modern-day books that are truly works of art.

The book I speak of is Ma Gastronomie, the book that describes the life and work of the legendary French chef, Fernand Point. It is certainly not a baking book. Calling it a cookbook would be undermining its true value. The recipes are not what has drawn me to its pages regularly over the years, but rather the stories of how Point ran his business, as well as a list of notes in which he shares his words of wisdom. The reader gets a clear sense that Point was a professional in the highest sense, an absolute perfectionist when it came to the Grande Cuisine, but he also had a playful nature. He treated others, including employees and customers, the way he would want to be treated himself and didn’t take anything too seriously.

It is a real challenge for me to focus on one of his statements as the most important, but there are two that speak to what is at the heart of the mission of The

Guild: education. It doesn’t take much to imagine he was referring to baking instead of cooking, when he wrote:

“As far as cuisine is concerned one must read everything, see everything, hear everything, try everything, observe everything in order to retain, in the end, just a little bit!”

“the duty of a good cuisinier is to transmit to the generations who will replace him everything he has learned and experienced.”

I often tell students that the only difference between them and me is that I have more experience. By “experience,” I simply mean that I have made more mistakes than they have. I’ve allowed myself to take chances, submersing myself in challenging situations to better myself. In general, baking is a low-risk craft, so there is so much more to gain than to lose in failure. Great bakers build themselves through a combination of education, lessons learned, and hands-on experience. Most importantly, I was the recipient of knowledge from so many generous people who were willing to pass to me what they had received from others.

When I first transitioned from cooking to baking, a baker who is now a great friend told me that he could teach me production if I came to work for him, but that I should go to The National Baking Center to really learn about baking. I took his advice, and it changed my life, but I would argue that there are real opportunities for teaching in a production environment. There is hands-on instruction, and there is

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notes from the chair

also teaching, but it takes some effort. At the very least, offering a shelf of books and encouraging bakers to use it could make a difference.

It would be hard, if not impossible, to find a baker who could truthfully represent himself or herself as “self-taught.” Even with a total lack of face-to-face interaction with a teacher, the knowledge has to come from somewhere. This is why I am always perplexed when I see bakers who are unwilling to share their knowledge.

We must be good stewards of the industry if we want to see it continue on a positive path. Part of that is sharing our knowledge. This is certainly the duty of a baker and the mission of The Guild.

Perhaps the greatest return on your efforts is that the next great baker you are looking to hire may already be working for you.

jeff yankellow

Board Chair

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 3 }

the Bread Bakers Guild of america gratefully recognizes its

2016–2018 fundraising partners for their generosity.

Platinum Partner ($120,000)

General Mills, Inc.

Gold Partner ($60,000)

King Arthur Flour Co.

Silver Partner ($36,000)

Central Milling Company

Lesaffre Yeast Corporation

Bronze Partner ($18,000)

Ardent Mills

Giusto’s Vita-Grain

copper Partner ($12,000)

Grain Craft

Media affiliates

Bake

Pastry & Baking North America

artisan circle ($3,600)

Allied Bakery Equipment Company, Inc.

Bay State Milling Company

Breadsmith

Chabaso Bakery

Clear Flour Bread

Companion Baking

George & Phyllis Enloe

Macrina Bakery & Cafe

Tom Cat Bakery, Inc.

Zingerman’s Bakehouse

hearth Society ($1,980)

Amy’s Bread

Bit of Swiss Pastry Shoppe

Crema Cafe & Artisan Bakery

Dawn Food Products, Inc.

Erika Record Baking Equipment

Lallemand Inc. / American Yeast Division

Niedlov's Breadworks

TMB Baking Equipment

Townie Bagels

couche club ($990–$1,979)

Anonymous (1)

Bennison’s Bakery

David Bergman

Sandy & Christian Bernards

Frank Carollo

Jason & Linda Gollan

Wendy & Dave Krishock

Orlando Baking Company

Richard Sperry

Sun Street Breads

Baker’s Bunch ($390–$989)

Mary K. Andrews

Anonymous (1)

Jennifer Baker

Bob Blaske

Breadfarm

Ann F. Burgunder

Crossroads Bakeshop

Euro Pane Bakery

Abram Faber & Christy Timon

Gail Goetsch

Grateful Bread (California)

Harvey & Nora Hanoian

Patricia Kennedy

Neil A. Levy

Robert McCamant

National Honey Board

Serenity Farm Bread

Mitch Stamm

Tree-Top Bakery

Catherine Trujillo

Victorian Bakery, LLC

Jim Zimmerman

T h a n k s T o o u r D o n o r s

guild newS

Guild friends (Up to $389)

Tim Andrews

Anonymous (4)

George Blanford

Lynne Bowden

Carol Brownson

Jim Budros

Ed Clebsch

Connie Cox

Marsha De Angelis

Dewey Doughberman

Thomas Endejan

Lee Glass

Good Wood Pizza Ovens & Baking

Grain Conditioning, Inc.

James W. Hatfield III

Janet’s Quality Baked Goods, Inc.

Jones & Perry, Inc.

John Jordre

Melina Kelson-Podolsky

Jeff Klopatek

Paul Krebs

John & Laura Kvasnosky

Zach Langenkamp

Larry Lobe

Roger Martella

Joan McConville

Benjamin Miller

Richard Miscovich

Drew Moncol

Moxie Bread Co.

Murray Hollow Bakers

Barbara Oberlin

Christian Oertel

Barbara Oletzke

Beverly Ousley

Lewis Perlmutter

Peter Reinhart

Sara Scudier

Elizabeth Yahr Southard

Cathy Wayne

Ken Wilcox

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march56

no-knead Pizza: Stecca and ciabatta Variations

jim lahey

General Mills – Minneapolis, MN

march1213

Breads of the world

didier rosada

Long Beach City College –Long Beach, CA

april23

the Science and art of artisan Bread

melina kelson-podolsky

Johnson & Wales University –Providence, RI

april34

Baking with locally Sourced Grains

mike Zakowski

Central Milling – Petaluma, CA

april1415

rye on the rise

jeffrey hamelman

Grateful Bread Company – Denver, CO

may1617

Designing Signature flavors with Sprouted and local Grains

Zachary golper

Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts – Atlanta, GA

may2122

Beyond traditionallaminated Doughs

sandra holl

Kendall College – Chicago, IL

july9

10

elevated and laminated: advanced Viennoiserie for Professional Bakers

jeremey gadouas

Midori Bakery – Redmond, WA

september1617

Baguettes Six ways

jeffrey hamelman

King Arthur Flour – Norwich, VT

october25

webinar – artisan Baker certification Program

solveig tofte jory downer

october 9

1011

three lectures at iBieAdding Artisan Breads to Your Bakery

michael eggebrecht

Wheat Breeding and Practical Uses for the Baker

stephen jones julie dawson tom hunton

The American Grain Movement: Where We Are in 2016

richard miscovich

april1516

Preferments: techniques, Process, and Products

karen bornarth

Johnson & Wales University – Charlotte, NC

june25

Sixth annual Guild-wide Bakery open house

F ebruary2829

Product Development: the art of collaboration

tim healea dillon debauche chris fraZier

The Art Institute of Portland –Portland, OR

Contact The Guild for more information | 707.935.1468 | info@bbga.org | www.bbga.org

the bread bakers guild of america

is proud to announce its 2016 regional event theme, “Bread Uprising.” The

bread industry is on the rise with new ideas. Bakers are following exciting new directions – working with freshly milled flours, installing mills in bakeries, and

troubleshooting the challenges of baking with flour made from locally grown and milled wheat. Our 2016 classes reflect

these changes and challenges.

june1314

cutting-edge Breads with whole Grain flour

craig ponsford

Culinary Institute of America –San Antonio, TX

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 5 }

In our Yahoo eGroup, the following question was posed last summer: What do you do during the “off-season” when the farmers markets are not open? We thought that the responses would be of interest to the membership at large.

brian hernonSlow Rise Bakery – Lancaster, PAI, too, am subject to the vicissitudes of the farmers markets. I wouldn’t overestimate the number of loaves that a grocer will need from you. The real question is: What is the minimum number of loaves that will pay you to make the trip? It might be worth your while if you split those 40 loaves among three markets.

Look at family-owned grocers. They may look like conglomerates from the outside, but perhaps they are members of a buying co-op.

Don’t just send a letter. Make a visit and leave samples, then call back. And call. And call. Make them say no.

Don’t just make bread. Find another product that fits the style of bread you’re making, and it’ll help pay the freight – a cookie or granola bar or granola.

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mark dyck Formerly of Orange Boot Bakery – Regina, SKI’d work on getting the email address of everyone who buys from you at the market, so you can get a CSB (Community Supported Baking) subscription program going for the winter.

Before we opened our place, I’d email everyone three days before baking day so they could pre-order whatever I was making. Worked very well.

andy wysocki Townie Bagels – Palm Springs, CASome options I looked into that you might consider.

1 Wine store on weekends. Let them put your bread next to the cash register or wine so people can pick up a loaf for their entertaining.

2 Consider delivery or drop off point. I’m chatty with the local businesses in town. I found a spice store that was willing to use them as a drop off point. So customers would order, I would deliver to her and she would give people their prepaid orders. She got the benefit of getting people into her store, and I only had to deliver to one location, so there was no charge to me.

3 Talk to B&B’s, as they might like bread for their customers. I know a couple of places in town do a Wine Friday Night for their customers to kick off the weekend. So they would also do cheese and bread, along with the wine.

derek degeerHootenanny Bread – Damariscotta, MEIn Maine there are a couple good farmers markets which go indoors on Saturdays during the winter. There are also CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) pro-grams that will often sell a bread subscrip-tion as an optional up-charge. You could start a bread and soup subscription your-self if you feel you have the customer base.

Restaurants and retailers slow down in the winter, but they do still provide some income. Bread is often a “loss leader” for [grocery stores], so as a small producer, you can be competitive by being flexible about what you can produce and what you’re willing to take back as shrink. Planning a few days a month to go into the store, give out samples of your breads, and engage the customers goes a long way to increasing your sales and building your mailing list as well. ✹

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COUSINS ACROSS THE WATER“My friend, rick Coldman, is a rare animal in the uk: a sourdough baker baking out of a large alan scott masonry oven, working the markets down the coast from Machynlleth to the Mumbles in the south of Wales. a tough way to make a living.

“When my copy of Bread Lines (23.4) dropped through the letter box recently, I was struck by the similarity between rick and the farmer in the Central Milling advert. so when he called in the other day, I put the magazine in his hands and my hat on his head and took the photo for your entertainment.”

~ MICK HARTLEY Guild member and Owner, Bethesda Bakers, Wales, UK

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 have you interviewed potential employees with a fantastic resume, only to have their skills fall short when they hit the bench? Are you a baker who would

like to challenge yourself and perhaps have an advantage when seeking employment? There has long been an expressed desire for The Guild to develop a certification program to establish a way to measure basic techniques that a good artisan baker should possess.

The goal of The Bread Bakers Guild of America’s Certification Program is to establish and measure the core skills of an artisan baker. There will be three tests: two at the beginner’s level and one at the advanced level. The first level consists of the Certified Bread Baker and Certified Pastry Baker. The final level will be the Certified Artisan Baker test, which will demonstrate mastery of products typically found in an artisan bakery, formulation, and production management.

For the past year, our committee of five – comprised of Jory Downer, Solveig Tofte, Mitch Stamm, Jeffrey Hamelman, and Melina Kelson-Podolsky – have deliberated over what this program looks like. After much work and many hours of discussion, we are prepared to begin testing for the Certified Bread Baker. To become a Certified Bread Baker, the candidate must be a Guild member and have at least one year of experience in a bakery. The first part of the exam is a 100-question test covering information on milling, flour functions and standards, preferments and fermentation, mixing and baking, plus some basic sanitation practices. And of course, no Guild-sanctioned test would be complete without a few questions about baker’s percentage. When the candidate has earned a passing grade on the written exam, he or she will be approved to take the practical portion of the exam, which will be held at testing sites around the country.

The practical exam will occur over the course of two days: the first day consists of one hour to mix preferments, and the second day offers 7 hours to complete the baking, plus one additional hour for cleaning. We will be issuing formulas for four doughs, and the candidate will be responsible for a “baker’s choice” bread. We have selected items to help us assess the skills we believe any baker needs to be an asset to a bakery, including an understanding of fermentation control, shaping and scoring techniques, and time management. The candidates will produce:

: Poolish baguette and hard rolls: Multigrain boules and pan loaves : Challah braided in two ways and formed into two shapes of

soft rolls : Pain au levain : Baker’s choice (a grain-based or fruit and/or nut dough

designed by the candidate)

Our committee met in late February at Kendall College in Chicago to take the exam to verify its effectiveness and to determine acceptable standards for the finished products. We worked to create an assessment that honors the baker’s effort, and our ultimate goal as an educational organization is to make sure each candidate completes this level with an understanding of his or her strengths as well as areas for further growth.

Applications for the certification program will be available soon. For an overview of the new certification program, please join Jory and Solveig at a webinar, “Artisan Baker Certification Program,” on October 25.

Please watch the eNewsletter for more information about the program and the webinar. We look forward to welcoming many Certified Bread Bakers into the fold. ✹

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New ArtisAN BAker CertifiCAtioN ProgrAm

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 7 }

guild newS

2016 semifinalistsJAMES BEARD AWARD FOR

OUTSTANDING BAKER

the jaMeS BearD awarD for oUtStanDinG Baker iS Still relatiVely new: thiS iS only itS SeconD year.

The award is given to “a chef or baker who prepares breads, pastries or desserts in a retail bakery, and who serves as a national standard-bearer of excellence.

Must have been a baker or pastry chef for at least five years.”

We’re proud to see The Guild so well-represented on the 2016 list of semifinalists.Guild members are shown in color:

robert alexander The General Muir, Atlanta

Evan Andres Columbia City Bakery, Seattle

Kim Boyce Bakeshop, Portland, OR

joanne chang Flour Bakery + Café, Boston

Andre Chin and Amanda Eap Artisan Boulanger Patissier, Philadelphia

Rick Easton Bread and Salt, Pittsburgh

Mark Furstenberg Bread Furst, Washington, D.C.

Michelle Gayer Salty Tart, Minneapolis

Zachary Golper Bien Cuit, Brooklyn, NY

john kraus Patisserie 46, Minneapolis

Phoebe Lawless Scratch Bakery, Durham, NC

Belinda Leong and Michel Suas B. Patisserie, San Francisco

Cheryl Maffei and Jonathan Stevens Hungry Ghost Bread, Northampton, MA

Laura Martelli and Matthew Rosenzweig The Flaky Tart, Atlantic Highlands, NJ

Dave and Megan Miller Baker Miller Bakery & Millhouse, Chicago

Moshit Mizrachi-Gabbitas Janjou Pâtisserie, Boise, ID

Sarah O’Brien The Little Tart, Atlanta

lionel Vatinet La Farm Bakery, Cary, NC

Melissa weller Sadelle’s, NYC

William Werner Craftsman and Wolves, San Francisco

Thank You ANDWelcome Jerod Pfeffer of 460 Bread

in Driggs, ID, has stepped

down as Associate Formula

Editor. We are very grateful

to him for his generous con-

tribution to The Guild. He

has significantly improved

the formatting standards

and processes, as well as

managed our team of for-

matters – all while running a

bakery. Jerod will continue

to volunteer as a consultant

to formatting team.

We are delighted to

welcome two new Associate

Formula Editors: Meeghen

Eaton, a serious home baker

and food blogger in Agassiz,

BC, and Zach Langenkamp,

Director of Product

Development at Blue Baker

in College Station, TX. Both

Meeghen and Zach have

been members of our

formatting team since

2013. They will work with

Allen Cohn, Chief Formula

Editor, supervising our

dedicated team of volunteer

formatters.   

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Connie Cox Back Door Baker Serious Home Baker, Camden, AR

: Elected to a three-year term beginning January 1, 2016.: Guild member since 2004. : M.A. in English, journalism, and speech. Taught English and

journalism in the Camden, Arkansas, public schools for four years. : Other information: Connie is also a Certified Financial Planner

and real estate agent. She is president of Camden Connections Foundation, a non-profit that is working with the City of Camden on a $2 million walking trail project. She has volunteered at Guild events, including IBIE 2010, IBIE 2013 and WheatStalk 2014.

“I am extremely excited about being appointed to the Guild Board. Even though I do not have a culinary background, I have a passion for baking. The Guild has offered me opportunities to nurture this passion. Members have generously shared their time and knowledge through The Guild’s educational events, newsletter, and eGroup. I

have met, consulted, and become friends with some of the country’s best bakers. I have visited and toured bakeries from coast to coast. None of this would have been possible, had it not been for The Guild and the kindness and openness of its membership. Now I have an opportunity to give back to the organization that has given so much to me.”

HeLLo GOODBYEWe are pleased to welcome four new members to the Board of Directors: Connie Cox, Sandy Kim-Bernards, Richard Sperry, and Catherine Trujillo.

the Guild Welcomes new Board Members

RiCHaRd SpeRRy Professor of Anesthesiology University of Utah, and Executive Director Rocky Mountain Center for Health Care Policy, Salt Lake City, UT

: Elected to complete Neale Creamer’s term, which ends on December 31, 2016.: Guild member since 2005. Serious home baker.: M.D, Ph.D. in higher education administration, M.A. in economics, B.A. in economics and chemistry.: Other information: Richard has served on numerous boards, including the Board of Trustees

for the Utah Hospitals and Health Systems Association. He is the author of two textbooks and teaches university classes on anesthesiology, economics, political science, and public health. He participated in Camp Bread 2007 and WheatStalk 2014.

“I have been in awe of bakers and the baking process for many years. My love of good bread motivated me to try to produce bread in my own home – it’s just flour, water, yeast, and salt, so how hard could it be I reasoned. Turned out it was easy to produce a mess but far less easy to produce something beautiful and delicious. Luckily, I came across The Guild several years ago and began to get training and mentoring. I can now produce consistently good, and sometimes really good bread – all thanks to The Guild and its members. Without the help and encouragement of Guild members, I would have quit long ago. My appreciation and admiration for The Guild has grown exponentially. I am honored and excited to serve my fellow bakers and to give back something to The Guild that I love.”

Sandy Kim-BeRnaRdSDirector of Baking Chabaso Bakery, New Haven, CT

: Elected to a three-year term beginning January 1, 2016.

: Guild member since 2006. Bakery employee.

: B.A. in economics. Completed a four-month intensive baking and pastry program at the San Francisco Baking Institute.

: Other information: Sandy volunteered as The Guild’s Associate Formula Editor for four years and still serves on the formatting team. She was formerly a Chef Instructor at the Art Institute of California in Santa Ana, CA. In 2013 she was the Grand Prize winner in the commercial category in America’s Best Raisin Bread Contest.

“The Guild has always been a guiding light throughout my baking journey. Therefore, is such an honor to be able to serve The Guild and its members and to continue to help foster the community that embraced me and my passion for bread.”

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b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 9 }

guild newS

Solveig Tofte: Creating Educational Opportunities By melina kelson-podolskyGuild Board Member and Assistant Professor, Kendall College, Chicago, IL

the world can be divided into talkers and doers. through this lens, it is quite obvious

that solveig tofte falls into the latter category. In the six years she has been on the Bread Bakers Guild of America Board of Directors, solveig has assumed many roles. In each, she has rolled up her sleeves and participated in the necessary heavy lifting of committee work, and we are all grateful for those contributions. More important, her clear vision, coupled with inspiring organizational skills, allows solveig to create efficiencies in the way work gets done.

HeLLo GOODBYETod Bramble: Bread Lines LegacyBy jeff yankellow Board Chair

Whenever a Board member leaves the Board after multiple terms, the moment is bittersweet. We all serve on the Board for different reasons. It is, first and

foremost, a labor of love and a commitment to everything the Guild stands for: artisan baking education. eventually, the time comes to move on, and in tod Bramble’s case, he is moving on in the best way possible. he is leaving the Guild a better place than he found it.

More specifically, tod’s legacy will live on in the impact he had on Bread Lines. Once a newsletter, now a magazine, Bread Lines fell under tod’s umbrella as soon as he joined the Board. he had no journalism experience that I am aware of, but he jumped in and learned on the job without hesitation.

Managing Bread Lines is an all-consuming role. You have to juggle multiple balls in the

CatHeRine tRujiLLoVice President of Business Development Rubicon Bakers, Richmond, CA

: Term: Elected to a one-year advisory term beginning January 1, 2016.

: Guild member since 2012. Bakery employee.

: B.A. in art history. Certificate of Pastry Arts from the Culinary Institute of America-Greystone.

: Other information: When Catherine was with Whole Foods Market, she was responsible for the Global Bakery strategic plans, programs, marketing strategies, and financial objectives. She is the Managing Editor for Bread Lines, and she serves on the advisory committee for La Cocina, a non-profit providing business support for low-income food entrepreneurs.

“I am extremely honored and earnestly grateful to serve on The Bread Bakers Guild of America Board. I look forward to collaborating with our baking community and members advocating the commitment and dedication of our mission.”

We thank Tod Bramble and Solveig Tofte for their service to The Guild.

And says Goodbye to Others

Continued on next pageTod Bramble Key Account Manager, Ardent Mills

Solveig Tofte taught classes at WheatStalk.

Continued on next page

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Solveig Tofte: Creating Educational Opportunities Continued from previous page

In her time with us, solveig has jumped into every role, from Board Chair to schlepper-with-a-smile; she has never shied away from doing the work. she has so many admirable qualities, but chief among them is the ability to “make things happen.” Providing scholarships to bench workers was a concept important to the entire Board. she created an avenue to make this idea a reality. solveig has served as the head of the scholarship Committee, wading through excellent essays from candidates to determine who will earn an opportunity to learn. she established criteria to make the process equitable and consistent. And thanks to that leadership, the Guild has provided 14 scholarships to date, worth a total of $5,250 in tuition, to help bench workers continue to grow their skills. Consider how many bakeries that has helped!

solveig has served as a committee member and judge for Bread Bakers Guild team usA. Mindful that these bakers have dedicated time and heart working toward their dream, she approaches judging with compassion and treats the process as an opportunity for each of these people’s personal growth. she works to make the rigors of trying out for the team an educational opportunity.

solveig helped streamline the responsibilities for Wheatstalk, tremendously lightening my load as Wheatstalk Director load and helping create a reproducible event. In the 2014 incarnation, solveig took the role of educational Director, helping to craft relevant and meaningful curricula for our membership. But that’s what she does. solveig constantly pitches ideas that bring education of our craft to the most people as affordably as ever.

there are so many contributions solveig has made – only a fraction of them are outlined above. she manages to provide ideas, insight, and “do the work,” all while managing a successful bakery and being an engaged parent and a constant friend. her contributions to the Guild have made our organization stronger and more efficient. Let’s all raise an IPA to this unsung heroine! ✹

Surviving the Mosbolletjie Issue

tod Bramble and I became co-editors of Bread Lines unexpectedly in 2010, after a sudden staff change. Although

I had written and edited articles for what was then called “the newsletter,” I had never been in charge of planning the entire operation, and neither had tod. It was, we discovered, a steep learning curve.

After countless headaches, we managed to produce our slim first issue, which featured articles about international baking and included a labor-intensive south African formula. We joked afterwards that we should have t-shirts printed: “I survived the Mosbolletjie Issue!” It was on-the-job training … or baptism by fire.

I have truly enjoyed working with tod these past five and a half years. I’m going to miss his clear thinking and his easygoing, unwaveringly cheerful work style – character traits that made our planning calls a pleasure. he was instrumental in shepherding Bread Lines to the next level and supervising its transition from newsletter to magazine. Whenever you make mosbolletjies or admire the way Bread Lines has evolved, think of tod. ✹

– laverne mau dicker Guild staff, sonoma, CA

Tod Bramble: Bread Lines LegacyContinued from previous page air, and it hasn’t gotten any easier over the years. While one issue is wrapping up, the next one is coming together. You must always be looking ahead to how we will fill future issues with new and relevant content.

tod led an effort to take Bread Lines to the next level. this was a real challenge. twenty years ago, writing about preferments was new and exciting. Finding new and exciting topics today is not so easy. he also looked beyond what had become comfortable, searching out bakers doing experimental, cutting-edge things, and sharing their techniques with our membership.

tod always reminded me that even when there is a great idea, finding someone to write about it is where the real work starts. somehow he managed to make it happen. he wasn’t afraid to tackle tough topics, often allowing both sides of some controversial issues to speak their mind.

We will miss tod not only for his efforts on Bread Lines but also for his happy spirit and friendly nature. he was easygoing but spoke his mind. During his two terms on the Board, he worked tirelessly and made a difference. We wish him the best of luck as he moves on and thank him for leaving us in a good place. ✹

HeLLo/GOODBYE Continued from previous page

guild newS

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 1 1 }

“k ickin’ It Old School: Bringing Back Classic Viennoiserie” exceeded my expectations. Having just shy of two years baking experience and even less laminating experience, I was thrilled from the moment I was awarded the bench scholarship: to learn more about viennoiserie and from a world-class baker! Tracey’s enthusiasm fueled the

class from start to finish, energizing us to meet our goal of making eight doughs and more fillings. With so many croissant, puff pastry, and fougassette to be mixed, laminated, and shaped, we started off at full speed, with no time to lose.

What most intrigued me in anticipation of Tracey’s class was baking with white flour. I feel as if I should be whispering this confession, because I know how unusual it sounds, but it was really only my second time working with white flour. My baking experience so far has been at Ponsford’s Place in San Rafael, where we use nothing but whole milled, whole grain flours. Tracey’s lamination was beautiful, and it was amazing to see how the viennoiserie exploded in size with proofing and again during the bake. This is something I’d never seen firsthand.

When I first started laminating, my biggest challenge was getting the dough and

butter to be the right temperature and consistency. This still is the most difficult part of laminating for me. I tense up when I see shattered butter through the dough, knowing that all I can do is carry on and learn what to do differently next time. One of the greatest tricks I learned from Tracey’s class was how to plasticize the butter block before lock-in. When the butter gets too cold, the most effective way to warm the butter up that last little bit is to plasticize the butter along the edge of the table. There’s no need to be gentle with the block, either. Flip the butter over and rotate it 45 degrees each time as you go. It becomes much easier to recognize the “magic point” when the butter bends but doesn’t break.

Another trick we learned was how to reduce inconsistencies in the dough - namely, spots that end up butter-less.

kickin’ It old school: Bringing Back Classic Viennoiserie

laMination, coMPoUnD BUtterS, anD fillinGS By HANNA NOEL

Guild Member and Baker, Ponsford’s Place, san Rafael, CA

NOVEMBER 14–15

Kickin’ It Old School: Bringing Back Classic Viennoiserie

Hosted bySAIT Polytechnic, Calgary, AB

Cindy Findlay – Liaison

InstructorTracey Muzzolini

TOP: Finished Pancetta and Ricotta Tartlet BOTTOM LEFT: Pancetta and Ricotta Tartlets before baking. The pancetta layer over the filling bakes to a crisp with the pastry. BOTTOM RIGHT: The class and instructor with some of the products they made.

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{ 12 } t h e b r e a d b a k e r s g u i l d o f a m e r i c a

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what’s old iS new

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Mushroom and Ricotta Tartlet with arugula garnish. An assortment of viennoiserie made in class. The class discusses how hard a bake was desired. Tracey Muzzolini egg washes croissant dough before making up pain au chocolat. Chocolate Cherry Chausson.

During the lock-in, fit the butter to cover half the dough. Then, instead of just clos-ing the dough like the cover of a book, cut the dough in half alongside the butter and make a sandwich instead. Usually my in-consistencies originate from the “binding” of my dough book, and this technique eases my problem from the start.

There are so many changes that a baker can make while laminating dough – how you make the butter blocks, how you plas-ticize the butter, number of and types of folds, etc. – that even the slightest variation can make the process either significantly easier or more challenging. It becomes a game of trial and error. Every dough I’ve made since Tracey’s class has been slightly different than the one before, in terms of ingredients, hydration, and methods.

Tracey also made a compound butter with two of the doughs. The Fougassette aux Olives had an herbes de Provence butter, while the Chocolate Puff Pastry had a cocoa compound butter. What a great, simple way to ensure flavors are incorporated into every last bite of the dough, especially if you are using the same dough base for several blocks

of viennoiserie. I’m salivating, just remembering the flaky, flavorful, herbed olive fougassette.

The fillings we made were equally as inspiring, from the veggie rolls with a Caribbean-influenced curried split pea filling to the Cannoncini Citrus Explosion. And if you were a peanut butter and jelly sandwich kid, you would have loved the Jam Master Jam. Picture a bear claw with a maple almond butter and apricot jam filling, and raspberry jam piped in at the knuckles. A simple PB&J will never again measure up.

Thinking about all the sweet and savory fillings and compound butters that Tracey shared with us is making me hungry. And now that the hectic holiday season has passed, it’s the perfect time for me to focus seriously on improving my technique and making new products inspired by the class. I’m looking forward to laminating in the year ahead! ✹ p

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b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 1 3 }

La Fougassette aux olivesContributed by TRACEY MUzzOLINI

This bread was inspired by Christian Vabret. Of all the amazing breads he demonstrated at Camp Bread 2007, this one remained in my memory for many years. This version uses Manzanilla olives and an herbes de Provence compound butter.

olives: Dry olives on sheet pan overnight.

roll-in butter: Soften butter and fully incorporate

herbes de Provence. Form into rectangle between 2 sheets of plastic. Refrigerate until firm before plasticizing.

lamination: After first book fold and 30-minute rest,

unfold dough and apply olives to half of dough. Fold dough in half and proceed with second book fold.

ProceSS – La Fougassette aux OlivesMixing Type of mixer Planetary with dough hook Mix style Short 1st speed 0:06–0:08 2nd speed 0:02 Dough temp 75°F–77°F

Fermentation Length of time 1:30 Temperature Room

Détretempe Prep Preshape 24" x 12" Rest 0:30 Temperature 0°F

Roll-In Prep Soften Plasticize using any method Preshape 12" x 12"

Lamination Lock-in Standard Folds 2 book with 0:30 rest after 1st

Final rest 1:00 Temperature 40°F

Makeup Preshape 16" wide Sheet 10 mm Shape 4" x 4", then dock using pizza wheel Proofing device Sheet pans in proofer Garnish Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse sea salt at start of proof

Proof & Bake Final proof time 1:00 Temperature 75°F– 85°F Humidity 60% – 70% Oven type Deck Total bake 0:22– 0:24 Temperature 453°F Steam 3 sec

la foUGaSSette aUx oliVeS

*11.5%–12.8% protein †Based on total dough weight

Total Dough Weight 7.010 kg

Total Détrempe Weight 4.800 kg

TOTaL FORMuLaIngredients % kilograms

AP Unbleached Flour* 100.00 3.038

Water 50.80 1.543

Salt 1.80 0.055

Instant Yeast 0.40 0.012

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil 5.00 0.152

Totals 158.00 4.800Roll-In Butter 20.83† 1.000

Herbes de Provence 0.21† 0.010

Manzanilla Olives 25.00† 1.200

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil As Needed

Coarse Salt As Needed

what’s old iS new

TOP: The dough is portioned, and three slices are made in each portion. The pastry is pulled apart slightly to ensure the spaces remain. Olive oil is brushed on instead of egg wash. BOTTOM: Cross-section of finished fougassette.

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TOP: Tracey folds the olive layer in the last three-fold. The olives are left whole. BOTTOM: The olive dough is rolled out.

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The day began at 6:20 a.m. on a gray, drizzly morning with coffee at Starbucks, and at precisely 7:00 a.m., Nicky Giusto, Jeff de Leon, and Jacob Baggenstos went into competition mode. For the next few hours, under the watchful eye of coach and former team member, Harry Peemoeller, they rehearsed everything they would be doing at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, within exactly the same time frame, minute by minute, gesture by gesture. There were no breaks, no unnecessary talk, no wasted movements. On a regular basis a team member reminded his colleagues how much time remained. Toward the end the pace quickened, for although not many points are lost for going slightly beyond the allotted time, they knew that there is an unwritten rule that late finishers are never winners.

That wasn’t the end of the day. Product evaluation, a general review, and a snack took another two hours. Then it was time to begin practice of the two-hour preparation session that takes place the night before the competition. Dinner was at 9:00 p.m., and this schedule was maintained at every practice I saw.

For some time the team had already been practicing for a long weekend each month at Puratos in Seattle, General Mills in Minneapolis, Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, and Guittard Chocolate Studio in California.

Nicky Giusto explained how things came together for the team: “The first practices were like workshops. We would get together and bake. Getting to know each other’s style and method of working in the bakery was key during this period. We developed a bond early on, which, I think, paid

off greatly down the line when we were faced with tough situations. We broke down barriers and this allowed us to speak freely without worrying about hurt feelings.”

The flight to Paris and drive to the practice facility was a tour de force in terms of logistics and overcoming fatigue. I’d never seen such king-sized luggage, each bag full of tools and equipment (Nicky ended up paying a hefty surcharge.). Despite fears, everything made it, including ingredients sent by Federal Express weeks before.

Chartres is in the Beauce, a region known as the breadbasket of France because of its high wheat production and so flat that its 13th century cathedral was visible like a beacon from miles away. It had been a mere 50-mile drive from Paris, but although our beds in the hotel beckoned us for a nap, we pressed on to the practice space.

Continued from cover

From Practice to Paris : Following Team USA to the Coupe

Getting serious in the competition kitchen.

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Who’s the coach? Nicky Giusto, Jacob Baggenstos, and Jeff de Leon point to Harry Peemoeller.

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Minoteries Viron, well known for its Rétrodor flour and the award-winning baguettes its customers bake using a proprietary recipe, is on a site on the Eure River where there has been a flour mill since Gallo-Roman times. The mill is in an older building with large windows, through which the cylinders, sifters, and pipes sending flour streams from floor to floor are clearly visible. There’s a constant whirr of equipment, and trucks filled with bulk and bagged flour leave the loading dock at seemingly all hours of the day, but walkers, runners, and bicyclists, the slow-moving river, and the lush vegetation create an idyllic impression.

Patrice Tireau, the mill’s quiet, affable, and extremely effective young technical director, was our main contact. As Jacob remembers, “We invaded their space with boxes upon boxes of ingredients and equipment.”

Jeff added, “They allowed us to rearrange the kitchen to our own specifications and gave us free rein of the place.” (In fact, the baker who usually occupies that space in the daytime was put on the graveyard shift.) In other words, the team was left to its own devices, yet someone would always appear, as if out of the blue, when something was needed. Most incredible to Harry was that to make more work space, a huge mixer was moved out of the space and up two steep steps, so quickly and easily that it was as though it had never been there.

We were in completely different circumstances, but when practices began, there was a sense of déjà vu. Breakfast at the hotel replaced Starbucks (kudos to the Ibis Cathédral Hotel, located in a beautiful spot with views of the city’s ramparts along the Eure, for providing a full breakfast before the usual hour and lending the team storage and work space their last day), and the drive to the mill (the imperious British woman’s voice on the GPS made sure we tried every possible route – “Make the next U-turn and…”), but when things began at precisely 7:00 a.m., the team seemed to be back in Seattle, completely oblivious to the new surroundings.

The difference from what I witnessed in Seattle was that I now saw movements between the team members so coordinated that it seemed like ballet. Each one seemed to know, as if by instinct, that another teammate didn’t have enough hands for the task at hand. Baylor Paschall from Bakery Nouveau in Seattle lent a huge and reassuringly benign hand as property manager, and Craig Ponsford, former team member, coach, and Coupe judge, was there to provide an additional point of view and observe with a more detached eye.

Things went on with many improvements, and the logistical problem of where to find speed racks for tools and equipment was solved by Viron, who lent their own. The butter used for the viennoiserie was that of the reputable Charentes-Poitou producer, Montaigu, and it confirmed that region’s strength in producing an easy-to-use product, but the quandry of deciding the best ways to work with French flours for all the products was never solved to the team’s complete satisfaction.

Just as in Seattle, there was little off-time. Lunches were comprised of charcuterie and cheeses with the team’s own bread, and dinners at the hotel were adequate but lackluster. Later in the week we found a decent crêperie, and our farewell meal took place in one of the city’s better restaurants. That said, snobbery be damned. We were so relieved to find a Turkish restaurant that seemed to be only place in Chartres still open, that between the warm welcome of the proprietors, decent kebabs, and a cold beer, it, too, is a place we won’t forget. By the last day’s practice, I was beginning to fear that there would be no time to visit the Cathedral, but we did that night before dinner. We all agreed with Jacob, who found it “a great moment of pause.” Harry had the same impression earlier that afternoon as we drove through the pristine countryside to visit Viron’s recently acquired stoneground milling operation. Nicky, the miller among us, seemed transfixed by the combination of old and new methods he saw inside.

Jacob Baggenstos (foreground) works on the octopus.

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There was no practice on the last full day in Chartres. Instead, the minds of the team members were on logistics. The hotel employees had become more and more friendly over the week, and had read articles about the team’s participation in the Coupe in the local paper two days in a row (this is how we learned that the Chinese team was practicing at a trade school only a few kilometers away). Way beyond anyone’s hopes, they lent ⅓ of the large dining room and a bit of kitchen space. Ingredients and equipment were sorted and packed in such a way that everything would be close at hand, ready for a running start. During the long day, which went well into the night, there was an increasing sense of urgency, and any offer of help would have only been a distraction. The next morning, with no room in the minivans, I took the train to Paris, while the team drove to join the other competitors at the competition site and the nearby hotel.

And a running start it was. Jeff recalls trying to choose a flour among those available: “Having received the actual specs only a few days before made it difficult to choose, because nothing available was like what I had practiced with. As we were gathering ingredients on our first day

run, we found that many of the bags had been mislabeled. Nicky helped me analyze the spec sheets and choose. It was a very intense time, knowing that the flour choice could make or break my contribution to the competition. I had only a few minutes to make the decision. The choice turned out to be correct, but its attributes required that the dough be mixed in a way I didn’t anticipate.”

Harry called the information sessions “information overload,” and because the team was competing the very next day, there was the added pressure of the two-hour night before preparation session. I asked him if he’d slept that night, and with only a hint of a smile, he replied,

“Sufficient sleep on my side, but I wasn’t the one who had to compete.”

Jeff’s experience was more what one would expect:

“I hadn’t slept much the week before, and the night before wasn’t much different. I ended up taking a little nap during the drive to Paris. After that, it was Go! Go! Go!”

I arrived the next day, toward the very end of the competition, hearing from a great distance the clanging bells that some fans had brought. It was a hugely enthusiastic crowd,

Jacob Baggenstos assembles his artistic piece while Nicky Giusto stabilizes the surfboard.

LEFT: Jeff de Leon cuts a sheet of dough into triangles for his German Chocolate Brioche. RIGHT: Jacob Baggenstos constructs the surfer girl’s flowing hair.p

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with the Asian contingent showing far less reserve than one would imagine. The wonderfully astute Mitch Stamm filled me in on the goings-on:

“Observing the Coupe is like going to a Super Bowl party. You hope for a great competitive event, and you hope your team stomps the other teams. You arrive, you set up, and then everyone else shows up. People you haven’t seen in years, possibly since the last Coupe. Watching the teams was interesting. Harry seemed calm and confident. So many former team members were in the stands: Robert Jörin, Solveig Tofte, Craig Ponsford, Jeffrey Hamelman, Mike Zakowski, Peter Yuen, William Leaman – not sure who I missed. There were also at least three candidates from Team USA tryouts in the audience supporting the team and scouting the competition for the future.

“During the product presentations and judging on the final day, French President Hollande was escorted behind the stanchions to view and taste the products with the judges. Surprisingly, security was quite subdued. We were within an oven-loader’s length from him. No dogs. No visible weapons. That was compared with having to wait 40 minutes at an intersection downtown for Raoul Castro to pass by with his motorcade.

“It’s so difficult to tell what’s going on during the competition by looking at the products, especially the bread. Some of the most beautiful and elaborate shapes could possibly be dry white bread. Everyone is watching, trying to discern the mood of the teammates as they hustle or look at the judges’ reactions. All the theories and hypothesizing in the stands are fun and interesting. I spent a long time studying the intricacies of the Taiwanese showpiece, the warrior baseball batter mid-swing in the front; the catcher on the reverse side, the intricacies of the structure, the detail, finesse, and style. In terms of teams, Russia was a great surprise: all three of their team members were women. Great showing for a first effort, especially the viennoiserie.” 

I wondered about the competitive spirit impeded bond building between fellow artisans. After all, the stakes seem to be getting higher with every edition of the Coupe. Would that keep the teams from mingling and becoming friends? Harry recalls that the camaraderie and brotherhood of bakers started to kick in after the confusing first evening.

Jacob agreed: “The language barrier made it difficult at times, but once we started talking, met great bakers, excited to be there.”

Jeff added, “The team from Turkey was making their Coupe debut. While they didn’t finish on time, they showed great heart throughout and gained respect in many ways that didn’t involve winning a trophy.”

Nicky mentioned the Turks and the Canadians, and he observed that some relationships took more time. “Later, I formed a strong bond with the Japanese team,” he said.

Since the team competed on the first day, I wondered if they had a sense of how they had done themselves as they watched the others. Harry found it difficult to gauge: “It was hard to predict, because so much weight was placed on flavor, and we were not able to taste all the products from the competing teams.”

After the Coupe results were announced (1st - South Korea, 2nd – Taiwan, 3rd – France), I was a bit shy about asking Team USA members for their thoughts. I needn't have been; they were very forthcoming.

Coach Peemoeller gives Jeff de Leon some direction.

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“Overall, it was a wonderful experience,” Jeff explained, “I didn’t have my best run on the competition day, but I try not to have any regrets …. The team as a whole did a great job, and I only hope that everyone involved feels content with where we ended up.

I asked how the experience would affect him the future, and he said, “The training makes you conscious of every little thing you do when you work. Everything you go through is to make you a better baker, so of course, it sticks with you.”

Finally, I asked what their advice would be to future team members. It was Jacob who answered, but they are such a closely knit group that he was answering for all three of them: “There will be pain, but it’s all worth it.” ✹

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1 Nicky Giusto's breads included The Migration and Purple Piñon. 2 Team USA products. 3 Jacob Baggenstos’ artistic showpiece. The theme for the piece this year was “A Sport of Your Country,” and he chose surfing. Note the surfer girl’s hair, the octopus, and the tiny beach umbrellas. 4 Jacob anchors the surfer and her bungee cord to the surfboard. 5 Jeff de Leon's viennoiserie included Poached Pear Hazelnut Star and German Chocolate Brioche. 6 Bakers’ tools and equipment are the same, even in an international competition.

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khoraSan carDaMoM PorriDGe100% Organic stone cracked Khorasan

200% Water2% Salt3.5% Desiccated cardamom

: Add salt and cardamom to water and bring to a boil.

: Stir in Khorasan and simmer 3–5 minutes.

: Cool down at room temperature for 12 hours.

NOTE: Cooked porridge can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of days.

aPricot PUrée300 g Unsulphured organic dried apricots

300 g Organic pear juice300 g Organic apple cider1 Vanilla bean, halved and scrappedZest of 1 lemon

: Mix all the ingredients except lemon zest and simmer until apricots are soft (about 15 minutes).

: Add lemon zest and briefly purée in food processor. (The purée should still have some chunks.)

SoakeD aPricotS475 g Unsulphured organic dried California apricots220 g Water

: Soak dried apricots in water for 12 hours at room temperature.

: Chop coarsely.

ShaPinG: Shape 350 g pieces into boules.

: Shape 250 g pieces into pointy bâtards with one end slightly longer and tighter than the other.

: Place boule seam up on the couche.

: Wrap long end of bâtard around boule seam up and make a gentle “S” shape made with the main body of the bâtard.

My wife’s family inspired this bread: they migrated from Tunisia to France in pursuit of a better life. The flavors in this bread are distinctly North African: 100% whole Khorasan levain; cardamom Khorasan porridge; apricot purée; chopped apricots. The combined boule and pointed bâtard shape represents the transition from one culture to another.

ProceSS – The MigrationPreferment LevainMixing Type of mixer Hand Length of time Until incorporated

Fermentation Length of time 13:00 Temperature 73°F

final DoughMixing Type of mixer Spiral Mix style Short 1st speed 0:08 2nd speed 0:03 Dough temp 75°F

Fermentation Length of time 1:30 Temperature 75°F Number of folds 1 Timing for folds 0:45

Shaping Divide 250 g & 350 g pair Preshape Round Resting time 0:20 Shape See process notes Proofing device Couche

Proof & Bake Final proof time 1:00 Temperature 75°F Oven type Deck Scoring 1 slash on bâtard; 4 slashes on boule, miche style Steam 3 sec Total bake 0:28 Temperature 450°F Damper open Last 0:14–0:15

the migration

contributed by nicky giusto

*Malted hard winter wheat (11.5% protein) †See Process Notes ‡100% Khorasan flour, 65% water, 5% seed

the MiGration Total Flour Fermented in Levain 30.00%

Total Dough Weight 6.150 kg Whole Khorasan Flour 100.00%

TOTaL FORMuLa LeVaIN FINaL DOuGHIngredients % kilograms % kilograms % kilograms

Total Flour 100.00 2.600 100.00 0.780 100.00 1.820

Bread Flour* 60.00 1.560 85.71 1.560

Whole Khorasan Flour 30.00 0.780 100.00 0.780 0.00 0.000

Whole Spelt Flour 10.00 0.260 14.29 0.260

Water 75.00 1.950 100.00 0.780 64.29 1.170

Salt 1.80 0.047 2.57 0.047

Fresh Yeast 0.20 0.005 0.29 0.005

Khorasan Cardamom Porridge† 18.08 0.470 25.83 0.470

Apricot Purée† 18.08 0.470 25.83 0.470

Apricots, soaked, chopped† 18.08 0.470 25.83 0.470

Unsalted Butter 5.00 0.130 7.14 0.130

Starter‡ 0.03 0.008 1.00 0.008

Levain 86.14 1.568

Totals 236.54 6.150 201.00 1.568 337.91 6.150

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by arielle giusto chef and wife of nicky giusto, team usa member

 o f course, there was disappointment. Committing a year of one’s life to a single endeavor and in the course of one day have it all be decided is

the true nature of competition. And man, can it be harsh. Like running a race, there are endless variables beyond your control, and you hope to rise above them. In the afterglow of the day, there are many things that can be replayed over and over. But who wants to do that? Instead, let us rest our eyes on the brightest spark left, now that it’s all over – the relationships.

At some point during the week it stopped being a competition between countries and became a bonding of human beings. It was no longer a bus full of strangers; the shared experience of the work it took to get there broke down languages and barriers. We spent a lot of time with the very cool Japanese team. These guys had been practicing for three years. Through a translator, we asked them what they did in their free time. They said,

“Bake.” Bread was their life.

When the results were announced on the last day and neither of our teams made it to the podium, the pain was almost too much to watch. And when I caught that tender moment between Nick and Yoji, the Japanese bread baker, I realized that right there was what this competition was about.

Nicky, Jacob, and Jeffrey went in to the competition on the 5 am bus every day to show support for the teams competing that day. The dedication and humility of these guys was striking, and a pleasure to watch. They set a wonderful example for the rest of the teams – Americans, you can be very, very proud of your boys! Now they are part of the family and can only hope to continue to grow it more and more.

Watching the bakers who have been involved in the competition since the beginning – Craig Ponsford, the Irishman James Griffin, Aussie Brett Noy, and many others – as they reunited, caught up and laughed together, it is undeniably a wonderful family to be a part of. ✹

the coupe du monde an international baking family

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1 French supporters decided that the situation called for more cowbell. 2 Four teams competed

on each of the three days and drew lots for kitchens.

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Nicky (Team USA) and Yoji (Team Japan) became close friends during the competition.

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1 Young Team France fan. 2 Team USA, coaches, and supporters. 3 Samples of breads and pastries were distributed to bystanders. It was best to be in the front row.

4 Vancouver Island University student, Cassandra Boggs, wore her flag on her face. 5 Team Canada had its fan base, too. In chef hats, left to right: Alan Dumonceaux, Marcus Mariathas, and James Holehouse. 6 The Dutch were there in force. Hup, hup, Nederlands!

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ferMentation: Spread dough over a plastic-wrapped sheet pan and cover.

aSSeMBly: Remove dough from cooler and sheet to 2 mm.: Hold in freezer for use. : Lightly grease small (3"x2") and large (4.5"x4") triangle molds with pan spray.

: Cut 1.5" (small) and 3" (large) strips from frozen dough sheets.: Use chilled strips to line insides of molds. If dough is too warm this will be difficult.

: When dough has warmed just enough to be flexible, roll strip and unroll in mold, sliding dough into corners.

: Place lined molds in the freezer to set.: Once chilled (near frozen), use lined molds to cut shortbread base.: Dough will slide up as shortbread is cut, creating a flush edge on finished piece.

: Place in the freezer to set. Final insert is easiest to place when sides are frozen.

: Cut triangles with mold from frozen dough sheet for inserts.: Trim triangles to fit into brioche-lined mold.

: 3 pieces per insert (small); 6 pieces per insert (large).: Build final insert using alternating layers of brioche and filling (small: 5 layers; large: 11 layers).

: Remove molds from freezer. Using a paring knife, stab center of insert. Lift and place into center of mold.

Bake: Place a piece of metal and silicon baking liner cut to shape into mold and weight with metal nuts to retain shape and moisture of brioche.

: Allow molds to cool slightly before removing brioche.

: After molds are removed, brush triangle sides lightly with cream to maintain moisture.

: Stencil shortbread side with powdered sugar.

This bread is a riff on German chocolate cake, which has layers of coconut and pecan caramel. Cocoa noir and atomized chocolate give this chocolate brioche rich flavor.

ProceSS – German Chocolate BriocheMixing Type of mixer Spiral Mix style Improved Hold back Butter, ½ sugar 1st speed 0:04–0:06 2nd speed 0:04–0:06, slowly add remaining sugar after 80% development 1st speed 0:04–0:06, adding butter in 3 stages Dough temp 86°F

First Fermentation Length of time 12:00 Temperature 40°F

Shaping Divide 1.5" (sm); 3" (lg) strips Preshape See process notes Resting time Until almost frozen Shape Triangle Proofing device Triangle mold

Proof & Bake Final proof time 0:45–1:00 Temperature 80°F Oven type Convection Total bake 0:15– 0:18 Temperature 350°F Fan speed High

german chocolate brioche

contributed by jeffrey de leon

GerMan chocolate Brioche

*Hard winter wheat (12% protein)

Total Dough Weight 2.525 kg

TOTaL FORMuLaIngredients % kilograms

Bread Flour* 100.00 1.029

Whole Milk 29.00 0.298

Egg 38.25 0.394

Salt 1.80 0.019

Osmotolerant Instant Yeast 2.00 0.021

Unsalted Butter, softened 42.00 0.432

Atomized Chocolate 12.25 0.126

Sugar 7.63 0.079

Honey 6.10 0.063

Cocoa Noir 6.30 0.065

Totals 245.33 2.525Shortbread Base As Needed

Filling As Needed

Powdered Sugar As Needed

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chocolate ShortBreaD

*Cocoa Noire from Guittard®

Total Dough Weight 1.387 kg

TOTaL FORMuLaIngredients % kilograms

AP Unbleached Flour 100.00 0.486

Unsalted Butter 87.65 0.426

Sugar 62.25 0.302

Cocoa Powder* 33.53 0.163

Salt 1.23 0.006

Baking Soda 0.82 0.004

Totals 285.48 1.387

Chocolate ShortbreadnoteS: Cream butter and sugar.: Incorporate dry ingredients.: Sheet to 4 mm and chill.

German Chocolate FillingnoteS: Bring cream, sugar, butter, yolk, and salt to a boil. Whisk occasionally to prevent burning.

GerMan chocolate fillinG

Yield 1.986 kg

TOTaL FORMuLaIngredients % kilograms

Cream 100.00 0.557

Sugar 82.50 0.460

Egg Yolk 25.13 0.140

Unsalted Butter 23.50 0.131

Salt 0.53 0.003

Coconut, toasted 62.00 0.345

Pecan Pieces 41.30 0.230

Vanilla Extract 21.54 0.120

Totals 356.50 1.986

: Reduce heat to simmer and whisk continuously for 10 minutes.

: Remove from heat and add vanilla, coconut, and pecans.

: Allow to cool slightly. Spread over two half-sheet pans.

: Bake at 325°F for 12–14 minutes to set.: Freeze and then cut layers with triangle mold.: Trim triangles to fit into brioche- lined mold.

The jury considered numerous factors when scoring products, including appearance, taste, texture, size, weight, and creativity. Guild members Jimmy Griffin of Griffin’s Bakery in Ireland, and Brett Noy of Uncle Bob’s Bakery in Australia served on the jury.

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Jeff de Leon arranges triangles of German Chocolate Brioche for display.

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1 The top three teams on the podium. 2 & 4 The South Korean team members

and coach celebrate their victory. 3 Breads from Team South Korea. 5 The armored horse in the South Korean artistic showpiece, which featured the national sport of mounted archery.

6 Team Taiwan 7 Viennoiserie from

Team Taiwan. 8 Assembling the

Taiwanese artistic showpiece. Theme: Baseball.

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The top three teams in the 2016 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie were:

1st SoUth korea 2nd taiwan 3rd france

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There are no limits to what you can discover in the world of Europain. From retailers to distributors, boulangeries to patisseries, industrial to small

scale; everything you can imagine takes form in a booth. There is also a phenomenal scope of talent, including the renowned MOFs (Meilleurs Ouvriers de France) and Master Bakers. What I found most inspiring about all of the industry professionals was their eagerness and enthusiasm towards sharing their knowledge. The part of Europain that at first took me off guard was no one automatically assumed I was a student. Everyone I talked to seemed to think I was the owner of a bakery or a pastry shop. I couldn’t count the amount of times I was asked if I’d be interested in ordering 3,000 kilograms of this or 500 kilograms of that. Conversely, it was also astonishing and sort of exciting that I never knew who someone was. Was he a student like me? Or was he one of the best? It was a real-life game of Guess Who!

Looking around the trade show was like seeing a whole new world. Everyone was excited about the industry, and innovation was at its peak. Each booth told a different story and promised its own play in the future of the trade. From advancements in the art of cacao fermentation to the newest machines for rolling your baguette, there was always something you wanted to see and someone you wanted to talk to.

In between the frenzy of wandering through booths, I also attended the Coupe de Monde de la Boulangerie. It

was an event of passion and dedication, .like every day in a baker’s life. The stakes were high, as each country wanted desperately to take home the winning title. Team USA was composed of Nicky Giusto, Jeffrey de Leon, and Jacob Baggenstos. These three men worked as a tightly knit group and clearly demonstrated their love for the trade. Watching Jacob proudly gaze over his bread showpiece, I felt as though I was being given a tiny glimpse into all that he had sacrificed to be apart of this competition. On the lighter side of things, it was entertaining watching Nicky doing little hand gestures towards his wife in the crowd. He had the biggest grin, and it was evident that he was having fun. Jeffrey, who competed in viennoiserie, was more subtle with his emotions, but it was evident that he was a fantastic team player. As a group, the USA team fought hard to maintain the competitive edge their country had earned in 2012, when they took second place.

The Coupe de Monde was spectacular to witness. It told the tale of how baking has advanced to new territory while still fondly holding to its culture and home in France. In this year’s competition, South Korea shone as the new destination for baking and won the World Cup. Although a few hearts were torn by this verdict, It was fantastic to see a mature level of sportsmanship play out, as everyone celebrated the hard work and dedication that had been put into this event. ✹

by amera Johnson baking & pastry student, vancouver island university, nanaimo, bc

a whole new world

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1 France’s artistic showpiece was on bicycling. 2 Team France – Cyrille Martin, Déborah Ott, and

Claude Casado, are congratulated by Christian Vabret. 3 & 4 Products from Team France.

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i ’m a junior at Kendall College. This was my first time seeing a worldwide competition. It can be described in many words, but if I had to choose one,

I would say “phenomenal.” I have been in the culinary world since I was in high school, but I have never seen anything like this. I have been in competitions and watched competitions on TV, but seeing a live competition is way better that watching it on TV.

When I was invited to go to Paris to see the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, I had no idea what I was about to experience. The Europain trade show was amazing, but when we hit the area where the Coupe was, it was phenomenal. I really thought it was going to be like a television competition, but was I wrong. These competitors from all over the world put all of their energy, passion, and ambition in to their products. I may not have understood everything they were saying, but I could tell what the judges were looking for. I’ve made most of the breads that the competitors have made, so I have the highest respect for them.

Because I have some knowledge of what it takes to become a baker and to bake breads, I was excited to see this competition. The main reason is YEAST. I was taught that yeast does not wait for anyone. Once it is activated, it starts a race, and the finish line is the end product. I saw that some of the teams had issues, but they continued to work through it and made accommodations for whatever needed to be done.

At the end of the competition, it felt like a bullet to my heart when I found out Team USA did not place. But as far as I’m concerned, they actually won. Just to be in the Coupe is winning – the team’s dedication and ambition show in the passion that they demonstrated. I was really inspired and honored to see the 2016 Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie. ✹

by jocelyn figueroa baking & pastry student, kendall college, chicago, IL

phenomenal: coupe du monde de la boulangerie

1 The Coupe Master of Ceremonies (far right) interviewed prominent French bakers, including Eric Kayser (third from left). 2 A wall of bread.

3 Innovative pastries take time. 4 Christian Vabret (left) talks to members of the jury.

5 Jeffrey de Leon, Baylor Paschall, and Arielle Giusto celebrate at the Guildhall Gathering.

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Paris Guildhall Gathering february 9, 2016HôTeL d'AUBUSSon

LySe FAUre :: LIAISon

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1 John Tredgold (center) and Kendall College students. 2 Coach Harry Peemoeller speaks with baking students about their career plans. 3 The team and coach greet their fans.

4 Martin Ouimet and Solveig Tofte of Sun Street Breads converse with John Tredgold

(right) of Semifreddi's. 5 The hotel provided a variety of savories and sweets for the crowd.

6 Nicky Giusto's family members were there to congratulate him.

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Redefining the

Daily Loaf

Redefining the

Daily Loaf

lucky Dog Organic is a farm in Hamden, New York, a one-road town in the Catskills. Richard Giles and Holley White run a storefront farm café that kisses that road, and own or lease 150 acres of land in the area. Between 40 and 60 acres are in vegetables any given year, and about 25 are in grains. The food they grow goes to the shelves in the farm store, area farmers markets, and to New York City, at the Union Square and Fort Greene Greenmarkets.

The couple left the city and began farming almost fifteen years ago. The grains are a

relatively new venture but echo Richard’s other, much different farming experiences, growing commodity grains in the South.

“We grew hard winter wheat. I can’t remember the varieties,” Richard said, clipping the words in his southern accent. Each word is more tight than drawn out, but his pacing is easy and open. There’s a spaciousness that comes when talking with him, room for thinking. “These were strictly commodities. A crop that you take to the elevator and dump it, and take what they offer.”

His father worked at an experiment station on the Mississippi Delta, and Richard worked farms in eastern Mississippi and western Alabama. When the farm he was managing was sold, he went to grad school for fiction writing at the University of Alabama. He moved to New York City in 1995, and met Holley there in 1999. Shortly after they met, they left the city for the farm.

Farming up north, he’s steered away from commodity crops because they were a dead end. Lucky Dog has focused on spe-cialty vegetables, and this niche found a receptive audience, especially among the restaurant chefs and buyers who frequent the Greenmarket. He and Holley have experimented with different sales formats to make the financials of farming work. More wholesaling, then less. More farmers markets, then fewer. For a while, they ran a CSA, and this is what led to grains.

Michael O’Malley and Mercedes Teixido built a home a few miles from the farm. They teach art at Pomona College in Southern California, and come to New York for summers and breaks. They joined the CSA and developed a friendship with Richard and Holley.

In 2011, when Michael was on sabbatical, he lived in the Catskills. Surrounded by farms, he realized he wanted to grow wheat. This is not your average thought for anyone, let alone an artist, but bread had crept into his art and life.

Good bread first hit him in Maine, where he was working in ceramics and eating loaves from Bodacious Breads. (This bakery is now called Borealis Breads, and has been a leader in using regional grains.) Though Michael vowed then to learn to bake, it wasn’t until he was living in Pasadena, where he couldn’t buy a decent loaf of bread without effort, that the decision became a necessity. This coincided with a trip to Barcelona to research the sculptor Gaudi. After he ate exceptional pizza from a wood-fired oven, building an oven made it onto his list of musts as well. First, he dove into baking. The habit fed a lot of people and projects.

“I always bake two loaves and give one away, so it serves as this kind of bridge between myself and the people in my life,” said Michael, who races through words and ideas. He made a sourdough starter, too, and always gave that away. Soon he

baking reflectionS

Everyday Revolutions: Redefining the

Daily Loafby Amy Halloran

Guild Member and Writer – Troy, New York

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started teaching people how to bake. He also began making temporary ovens as art installations, and baking was always a part of these art pieces. Growing grains was the obvious next step.

Michael bought a combine on Craigslist, a little tow-behind All-Crop, the classic harvester coveted by people who are not going to grow many grains. Once he had the machine, he talked to Richard about growing wheat for bread. He knew that Richard grew rye as a cover crop, so he figured he’d have a ready partner for the project. Since Michael had the harvesting equipment, and was willing to find and pay for seed, as well as work out storage in the barn, Richard was game. In the back of his mind, he’d wanted to do something with grains, but keeping his eye on so many dozens of vegetables, the most he’d ever done was harvest some rye from time to time for seed.

“Winter rye is so vigorous, but we’re real busy in summer with the vegetables, so I tended to plow it in,” Richard said.

The grains have injected some extra enthusiasm into his farming work, which is often monotonous and hard. Richard also enjoys the angle that growing grain brings to something he knew in an entirely different context.

“Our approaches are so different. He’s a baker. My experience is with conventional grains, farmed as a commodity crop that has a narrow life,” said Richard.

To come back to grains with Michael’s insight is nice, and more akin to the way the farm handles vegetables, as foods that have value and variety.

The collaboration made the endeavor possible. The first year, in the fall of 2011, they planted Arapahoe wheat and some rye. Michael fixed up the combine and readied a storage bin upstairs in the barn. When they harvested 500 bushels, both were surprised. This was something real, not conceptual.

“The aroma, the feel, the freshness, you never expect that from flour,” Richard said when they had Farmer Ground Flour, which is a couple of hours away, grind some Arapahoe.

The informal partnership gave Richard and Michael more than either could have achieved working alone. Lucky Dog had a new, intrigu-ing product, and Richard had gained a new perspective on grains. Michael could get to know flour from the ground up, and gain more under-standing of a substance and process that fascinated him.

“Honey, cider, bread … I think they’re some of the real mystery foods of our planet. It was a phenomenal experience seeing what we grew. You don’t have quite that experience with a tomato,” said Michael. You can’t, because you can just pick a tomato and put a little red or golden sun in your mouth. For bread, you need people, tools, and time. Consumption requires a lot of processing and attention.

To Michael, the orchestration of flour, water, salt, and wild yeasts parallels the practice of making art. Both start with a vision and use materials to get to an end that is shared with an audience. Whether people are viewing art or eating bread, artists and bakers are connecting them to manifestations of ideas and labor.

In the fall of 2012, they planted 12 acres of grains, and the following July harvested about 1,200 pounds an acre … Holley uses some of the flour for breads she bakes at the store. Most of the grains and flour go to the farmers market at Union Square, where Richard gets to see how they are received … Most customers are open to trying whatever he brings, whether it’s watercress or Arapahoe flour.

More than the flour, though, people are excited to try the wheat berries, using them for sprouting or in stews.

Richard still plants rye as a cover crop, building organic matter in fields that grow vegetables. Each year he bumps up the acreage in grain. Michael has a 20-inch

baking reflectionS

Meadows mill, but has been too busy to set it up. The two want to mill at the farm or nearby.

“If we could mill we could sell more. Right now wheatberries sell more than flour, but it’s a very low volume and I would like for it to become something wholesale,” said Richard. Not wholesale to a grain elevator, but specialty wholesale, maybe to breweries or distilleries. Right now, the grains don’t net enough income to warrant extra labor.

The dimensions of the grain enterprise, though limited, are satisfying, and contribute to the farm’s viability. Lucky Dog is one of many start-up farms that are recarving an abandoned path to New York City markets. ✹

This excerpt from Amy Halloran’s book, The New Bread Basket (July 2015), is reprinted with permission from Chelsea Green Publishing.

Amy Halloran

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The Seeds of Monastery Bread

I am a bread baker and a monk and priest of the Orthodox Church. After six months of test baking and nine months of pilot-phase sales, I just bagged the 1,000th loaf of Monastery Bread. (But who’s counting?) Among Guild members, I’m a smaller quantity baker, but I am continuing a line of monks who have been making bread for centuries.

My association with bread baking started when I was a boy in Middletown, MD, a country town just outside the city of Frederick. My eldest sister worked for a supermarket bakery. she always came home in the evening, exhausted. While she ate dinner she would talk about her work. her stories and love for the bakery, in spite of its difficulties, made a lasting impression upon me.

After high school, I attended community college. I also worked for a book warehouse, which was across the street from a bakery. I applied to that bakery four times without success. the application said, “You must be able to lift 50 pounds.” sure, I could lift 50 pounds of books, and flour couldn’t be any harder to carry. Plus, that bakery smelled great! I never found out why they didn’t hire me, but in general it was very hard to get a job in that part of the city. there was a funny question on the application: “What is your favorite food?” I kept changing my

baking reflectionS

answer each time in an effort to give them what they were looking for, with no luck.

I was raised in a conservative Protestant family; my father is an organist, and I grew up in the various churches where he played the organ. When I was in college in Philadelphia, I read about Mount Athos in Greece, which is home to 20 eastern Orthodox monasteries, and began attending Orthodox services. soon after my last unsuccessful application to the bakery, I met the sisters of the sacred Monastery of st. nina. My whole life changed. I was so impressed by these women who had taken monastic vows. I knew that I wanted to become a monk.

I went to Greece and became a novice (literally, “One who is being tested”) at the holy Monastery of Petra in central Greece. As someone who was still learning to speak Greek, I was given a

responsibility that didn’t require verbal skills: caring for the trapeza (table),

where the brothers and guests ate twice a day. that included slicing and setting out the bread; we went through six or seven loaves per meal. I will never forget that bread. It was

donated to us by visitors and baked in the town bakeries of Greece. It was a white bâtard containing a bit of olive oil, with a thin, crispy crust topped with sesame seeds. setting those beautiful loaves on the table was my first exposure to artisan bread. And, on the Greek peninsula of Athos, one clearly sees the ancient roots of “local grain economy”: their bread is made with grain from their own fields.

there was a Father n. from Germany living there, who said he couldn’t find the scandinavian breads of his youth. I didn’t know what he was talking about. he said he wanted to build a wood-fired oven, but ongoing archaeological work had delayed that plan. Generally, a separate monastery bakery is normal in larger communities.

At the end of my novitiate, the Patriarch of Georgia approved the establishment of a men’s monastery in America, the founding brothers of whom came from Greece and Georgia. I returned from Greece with them. now a monk, I was ordained a hierodeacon (monk and deacon), and then a hieromonk (monk and priest). I live now at the Monastery of st. nina in union Bridge, Maryland, serving as Chaplain.

Baking for the Monks’ Table

Guild Member

and Baker

The Monk’s Table

Union Bridge, MD

by

Hieromonk

Demetrios

Agiopnevmatitis

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Finished prosphora (Communion bread)

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 3 1 }

baking reflectionS

My first baking experience here was to learn how to make prosphora (Greek for

“offering”), our Communion bread. In the Orthodox Church, leavened bread is used. In the beginning, nobody taught me how to bake prosphora; I was given a recipe by one of the Fathers, who told me that I needed to adapt it. At st. nina’s, one of the sisters bakes the prosphora using a formula and method from her grand-mother. I am observing and learning from her. But we are also modifying her formula based on what I have been learn-ing in the Guild, to produce a greater quantity with more desirable qualities. I am pretty sure we are the only monastery using autolyse for our prosphora dough! A few times each week I am caught within a mysterious confluence of events: in the morning I enter the church and prepare holy Communion, and in the afternoon I bake bread.

The Fruit of Monastery Bread

In the fall of 2014, I began baking table bread for nordic friends of the monastery who were in a situation similar to Father n’s – they were desperate for “real bread.” the bread was a big hit, and not only with the northern european friends. It occurred to me that I might bake bread to sell. I needed a handiwork to help support the brotherhood – each one of us has a responsibility to contribute to the community. An additional goal for me was to produce delicious bread for meals

on the weekends. In the future, I hope to provide that on a daily basis, as the large monasteries do.

I joined the Guild for the sake of asking only one question – but I have benefited more than I could ever have imagined. I learned by reading, asking questions on the eGroup, and meeting with local bakers. Articles from Bread Lines helped, especially when nate houge of Brake Bread wrote about using a rental kitchen and time slots [Bread Lines volume 23, Issue 2]. I identified with their situation because I share the monastery kitchen, where two large meals are prepared each day. I bake primarily alone, but monastery pilgrims sometimes assist me. My style has developed into using a large preferment with a shorter bulk rise,

mixing immediately after the morning meal and baking in the early afternoon before prep work for the evening meal begins. this compact schedule works well, since I mix 100% whole grain dough, which otherwise would deteriorate under a longer warm proof.

In spring of 2015, I did my first farmer’s market. At this point we switched to 100% organic ingredients. Monasticism carries an implicit ecological responsibility: it is not merely a courtesy but a necessity to support organic farmers and millers. this past fall I entered a promising relationship with a small organic grocery chain and began to design the next phase of growth: a detached bakery building. Lastly, our label is changing from

“Monastery Bread” to “the Monk’s table.”

Grounds of the Monastery of St. Nina in Union Bridge, MD

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A prosphoron loaf, made up of two circular pieces of leavened dough, one on top of another. The loaf is stamped with religious symbols. The plural of prosphoron is prosphora.

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Fr. Demetrios unloading loaves in the monastery kitchen.

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baking reflectionS

I currently make four kinds of bread:

1 a 75% whole wheat with 25% whole rye sourdough2 the same variety with raisins3 a 66% whole rye 4 a pumpernickel

All things considered, I believe the true fruit of the work is the positive impact that the bread has on people of all ages and backgrounds, on the friends of the Monastery who come to see the work and bake with me, and on me. the Apostle Paul speaks of many such “fruits of the spirit”: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). It is my hope that these are what the work of baking at the monastery has to offer people – not merely a return to the bread of their childhood, but also a return to childhood’s natural and peaceful simplicity.

I am extremely grateful for all the support and help of the Bread Bakers Guild. ✹

RIGHT: Father Demetrios

(left) with Jeff Kessler.

BELOW: Breads from The Monk's

Table

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Fr. Demetrios packaging the monastery breads for sale.

TOP RIGHT: Shaping rye bread. RIGHT: Selling Monk’s Table breads at a Christmas Fair.

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 3 3 }

A s craftspeople, bakers latch onto guidelines so that we can preserve the identity of a product and communicate clearly. When we see misappropriated terms, it’s frustrating and confusing. This article was prompted by a robust conversation on The Guild’s eGroup on how brioche is defined.

So, what is brioche? Like so many other symbolic foods, brioche has a long and murky backstory with a good dose of urban legend mixed in.

Brioche and Pain Benit

The Norman Vikings populated Northern France with their dairy cows as early as 800 CE. The Normans were famous for their outstanding, high-fat butter, which, for centuries, was cultured, giving it a more complex flavor and a cheesier texture. In fact, “brioche” shares roots in Old French with “brie,” because the butter in brioche was like a soft cheese. The name, which first appeared in print in the early 1400s, is possibly a hybrid of “brie” and “horcher,” meaning to knead.

Norman farmers were likely to consume their wares for subsistence, but the appeal of rich dairy was cherished by all and was viewed as a luxurious necessity. To fund the building of the Rouen Cathedral’s new tower in 1509, the archbishop prohibited the consumption of local Normandy butter during Lent – unless one paid a fee of six deniers to the Church. Eating butter became a symbol of wealth and power as the peasant producers were denied it. The tower is still known as the Tour de Beurre (Tower of Butter). Brioche

became a popular bread during Easter and throughout the year.

Brioche, distinguished as a luxurious departure from the heavy, whole-meal trencher bread used for the people’s sustenance, has been considered a special bread since its introduction to the bakery canon. It co-evolved with Pain Benit or blessed bread, an enriched bread that was given as alms in the Catholic Church. Early recipe books lumped the two breads together, as in La Varenne's Le Cuisinier François of 1651, where “Pain Benit and Brioche” are combined as a category. The 18th century historian Pierre Jean-Baptiste Legrand d’Aussy later wrote that brioche was being used as Pain Benit – and the conflation of doughs still persists.

In my research, I was not able to find firm and fast definitions for Pain Benit. I did, however, find a recipe for brioche from 1746:

Put a litron* of flour on the table and knead with a little hot water and little more than half an ounce of ale yeast; if you don’t have any, you will add in its place a little piece of bread yeast. Wrap in a cloth and put it to rise in a warm place for a quarter of an hour in summer, and one hour in winter. Next, you will put two litrons of flour on the table with the paste, which you have made as the leaven, one pound and a half of butter, ten eggs, half a glass of water, nearly one ounce of fine salt, knead everything together with the flat of the hands, up to three times, sprinkle it with flour and wrap it in a cloth, in order to let it rise for nine or ten hours, cut the paste according to the size of your

brioche with you wish to make, mould into rounds with your hand, flatten the top, gild with some beaten egg, bake them in the oven. For the little ones, bake them half an hour, and the big ones an hour and a half.

In the 18th century, brioche was not sweetened. Also, until the 18th century, brioche was commonly made with levain. The more “princely,” the more eggs and butter, but none of these quantities was fixed. For daily bread, historically, bakers set prices for their loaves, as overseen by the monarchy. Rather than changing the actual price per loaf, bakers were more likely to change formulas, subsidizing wheat with cheaper cereals, or they would even change the size of their loaves.

*A litron is equal to 793.5 ml, or about 3.5 cups.

Let Them Eat Brioche

Often brioche is held up as a symbol of the callousness of the monarchy leading up to the French Revolution. It turns out that this is all due to a misattributed story.

In his posthumous autobiography, Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau quotes a “great princess,” who, after being told that the peasants were starving because they had no bread, responded with, “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.” This phrase, accurately translated as, “Let them eat brioche,” was a genuine solution. However it was later misinterpreted to mean, “Let them eat cake,” a careless dismissal of the peasants’ struggle. Further, the quote’s unspecified author was assumed to be the unpopular Queen

technical article

Defining Brioche: history & standards

By meLina KeLSon-podoLSKy Guild Board Member and Assistant Professor, Kendall College, Chicago, IL

{ 34 } t h e b r e a d b a k e r s g u i l d o f a m e r i c a

technical article

Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, who reigned during years of famine and excessive taxation. Although Confessions was published in 1782, it was written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was a nine year old child. The unnamed speaker was actually Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV, who ruled 100 years before Marie Antoinette. Maria Theresa’s intention was compassionate: remember that Pain Benit and brioche were used interchangeably. She was referring to Pain Benit, the alms fed to the hungry.

The quote became popular in the years after 1782, when France was in the midst of social foment. In 1789, anti-monarchical tensions exploded into the French Revolution, perpetuated by the belief that the queen was out of touch with the people and characterized by the infamous phrase: Let them eat cake.

In the time following the Revolution, there were no definitive texts codifying brioche standards, until the 1950s, when Duval and Darenne’s Traité de Pâtisserie Moderne was published. A rough translation:

“The brioche dough has 4–8 eggs for 500 g of flour. Next, if we are going to add milk to the dough, use 6–7 eggs. Don’t remove the yolks because they soften the dough and give a sandy texture. If we use manufactured, instant yeast, we must mix it only enough not to damage the yeast. Brioche is made with two rises at different intervals. The first time we turn it with the flour and a good amount of force and flour coated hands. Then, I put it in a mold to rise. In the summer, the yeast is prepared with cold water. In the winter, it is better to use tepid water. In the same way, adjusting to the season, it’s necessary to maintain the dough at a cold temperature or in the refrigerator, to slow the rise.”

Brioche Vendéenne

I was hoping for something more absolute. I looked to American texts but could find only one that suggests that brioche needs a minimum of 30% fat to be classified as

“poor man’s brioche.” However, I couldn’t cross-verify the assertion.

I reached out to the French embassy and learned that only Brioche Vendéenne – a regional brioche with less butter and more sugar – is regulated as a geographically protected product. The standards are very clearly defined to protect terroir and identity. This seems to be a reaction – as Brioche Vendéenne became industrialized, the quality plummeted.

Here is the description: “It is a golden pastry, round or oval or a rectangle. It’s always presented fresh, whole or sliced, wrapped in food-grade paper. Frozen dough during production or for final product is prohibited. Brioche is made with a rich dough with sugar and eggs. In addition to the attributes contributed by those ingredients, it has the fragrance of alcohol with a base of vanilla and orange blossom. It’s characterized by a yellow crumb, that has an airy texture, pulls in strings and is moist. The minimum weight is 300 grams.”

The article goes on to explain that the original product is based upon a particular geographic location that, at the height of the Middle Ages, created the highest quality dairy, wheat, salt, and alcohol. The specified region and superior attributes for each of these ingredients is clearly defined.

The article outlines the composition:

“Brioche Vendéenne is made from the following:

“: Type 45 or 55 flour: >14% Cold eggs or whole, fresh liquid

eggs at 22% : >12.5% fresh butter: >9% sugar or invert sugar: Pâte fermentée or levain is mandatory: <2% fresh bakers’ yeast: 0.5% alcohol such as rum or cognac: 0.8–1% salt: <8% potable water and or fresh or

pasteurized or UHT milk: Aromatics such as vanilla or orange

blossom water

“Fermentation

“No-time doughs are prohibited.

“The dough, once mixed has a long, slow first fermentation. Two techniques are employed, first a direct fermentation method of 4 hours at room temperature followed by a cold fermentation for 24 hours. The long fermentation method can be considered in two parts; the first part during which the aroma builds and secondarily when the CO2 is developed giving the unique characteristics of the Brioche Vendéenne. This fermentation process is responsible for Brioche Vendéenne as opposed to other forms of brioche.

“The dough is hand-shaped, garnished, and baked. It is only baked in a tunnel or deck oven. Rotating or convection ovens are prohibited.

“The baking is done at low temperatures over the course of 20–45 minutes.

“After baking, the Brioche Vendéenne is packaged in clear packaging with a label that indicates the date. Shelf life is 21 days for the entire brioche, 19 days sliced, or 5 days for brioche of several kilos (custom orders). The brioches need to be transported in single layers if shipped more than 80 kilos. NO STACKING! Once brought to market, the brioche must be whole and needs to be presented in a dry area, protected from direct sunlight.

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Orange brioche

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ProceSS – BriocheMixing Type of mixer Spiral Mix style Intense Hold back Butter 1st Speed 0:04 2nd Speed 0:12 1st Speed 0:01, slowly adding butter 2nd Speed 0:08–0:10 Dough temp 78°F–80°F

Fermentation Length of time 1:00 Temperature 72°F Retard 8:00–12:00 Temperature 38°F Folds As required to reduce dough temp; typically 2–3

Shaping Divide As desired Preshape As desired Resting time 0:10 Shape As desired Proofing device As desired Garnish Egg wash before proof

Proof & Bake Final proof time 2:00 Temperature 80°F Humidity 85%–90% Garnish Egg wash before loading Oven type Convection Total bake Small shapes Large shapes 0:12–0:15 0:30–0:35 Temperature 375°F 350°F

Brioche

*Hard red winter wheat (11.5%–12% protein) †100% egg, 1% salt

FINaL DOuGHIngredients % kilograms

Bread Flour* 100.00 4.246

Egg, cold 59.00 2.505

Salt 2.50 0.106

Osmotolerant Yeast 2.00 0.085

Unsalted Butter, cold 60.00 2.548

Sugar 12.00 0.510

Totals 235.50 10.000Egg Wash† As Needed

Total Weight 10.000 kg

technical article

“The Brioche Vendéenne represents 11% of Viennoiserie market and 17% of the brioche market. That accounts for 15,000 metric tons of bread.”

Professor Calvel and Brioche

The French legislative process to protect the identity of this item is also published. In the United States, we don’t have a governmental body that strives to maintain the integrity of national foods, and this level of regulation, I suspect, would be unwelcome here. In my mind, there is one definitive source that North American bakers adhere to as The Standard, and that’s Raymond Calvel.

In his book Le Goût du Pain (A Taste of Bread), Calvel gives the following guidelines about the dough:

Brioche contributed by melina kelson-podolsky

MixinG: Prepare cold butter by pounding between acetate sheets or Silpat®.

: Do not allow dough temperature to exceed 90⁰F. If necessary, chill dough during mix.

A classic buttery, light brioche.

“Most of the liquid is whole eggs, although sometimes milk is used, usually in the sponge to balance flavor. To aid in mixing, reserve roughly ⅛ of the egg to add following initial development. Once the dough has pulled away from the sides, (after roughly 12 minutes of second speed mixing and about 72°), mount in butter. Mix until the dough miraculously reorganizes into an extensible mass. Ferment at room temperature before retarding to make the dough more manageable, develop strength and aroma. He references various brioche into categories by the quantity of butter:

“: Average, with 40% : High average, with 50% butter : Mousseline or Chiffon with 70% butter

“Laminated, which can be made with average butter or détrempe can have fat reduced to 25% with a laminating beurrage of 25% total dough weight.”

He goes on to identify the ideal doughs for a particular application, and even attributes an entire chapter to regional specialties. What an excellent reminder that all crumb-lined paths eventually lead to Calvel.

Although we may not have the bureau-cratic weight of a governmental body, as artisans, we preserve the standard of these products by being consistent with our offerings and educating our custom-ers. As frustrating as it may be to see butter-less products touted as “brioche,” take heart that a well-made product earns the return customer. ✹

Laminated Brioche made by Kendall College students.

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technical article

Milk and Pear starters

By michael pappas

Guild Member and Executive ChefThe King’s Kitchen, Charlotte, NC

A high hydration flour-water beginning starter, 75% covered with plastic so that the overripe pear can attract yeast into the opening.

There are various opinions about the different

stages of starters: from how we choose to create

a starter, to when we decide to perpetuate

and use it. I’d like to tell you about two of my

methods – I feel that they can open new doors to

experimenting with naturally leavened starters.

* In this formula hydration of Final Dough is most representative of product †1 tsp at this batch size ‡3 Tbsp at this batch size

SoPPreSSata, GrUyÈre, Black PePPer anD honey loaf Total Flour Total Flour Total Flour Fermented in Starter 16.67% Fermented in Levain 16.67% Prefermented 33.33%

Total Ingredient Weight 1.217 kg Bread Flour 0.00% Bread Flour 0.00% Bread Flour 0.00%

Total Dough Weight 0.948 kg Whole Wheat Flour 37.50% Whole Wheat Flour 37.50% Whole Wheat Flour 75.00%

TOTaL FORMuLa STaRTeR LeVaIN FINaL DOuGH*Ingredients % kilograms % kilograms % kilograms % kilograms

Total Flour 100.00 0.510 100.00 0.085 100.00 0.085 100.00 0.340

Organic Bread Flour 55.56 0.283 83.33 0.283

Organic Stoneground Wh Wht Flour 44.44 0.227 100.00 0.085 100.00 0.085 16.67 0.057

Spring Water 72.22 0.369 100.00 0.085 100.00 0.085 58.33 0.198

Salt 1.39 0.007† 2.08 0.007

Soppressata, diced ½" 22.22 0.113 33.33 0.113

Gruyère, diced ½" 22.22 0.113 33.33 0.113

Honey 16.67 0.085 25.00 0.085

Black Peppercorns, ground coarse 3.78 0.019‡ 5.67 0.019

Starter 16.67 0.014

Levain 20.83 0.071

Subtotals 0.948

Discarded Starter 0.156

Discarded Levain 0.113

Totals 238.50 1.217 200.00 0.170 216.67 0.184 278.58 1.217Hard Cheese Rind 1 small piece 1 small piece

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Starter: Place ingredients in drinking glass and mix.: Cover 75% of opening with plastic wrap; place cheese rind on top.

A clean-tasting loaf infused with cheese and fermented pork fat which is balanced with honey and sharpened with black pepper.

technical article

ProceSS – Soppressata, Gruyere, Black Pepper and Honey LoafPreferment StarterMixing Type of mixer Hand Length of time Until incorporated Dough temp 75°F

Fermentation Length of time 48:00 Temperature 70°F–75°F

Preferment LevainMixing Type of mixer Hand Length of time Until incorporated Dough temp 75°F

Fermentation Length of time 12:00–18:00 Temperature 70°F–75°F

final DoughMixing Type of mixer Hand Mix style Short Hold back Salt Length of time Until incorporated Dough temp 75°F

Fermentation Length of time 3:30 Temperature 70°F–75°F Number of folds 1 Timing for folds 1:00 add Salt during fold

Shaping Divide Baker’s choice Preshape Baker’s choice Resting time As necessary Shape Baker’s choice Proofing device Baker’s choice

Proof & Bake Final proof time 2:30 Temperature 70°F –75°F Oven type Deck Scoring Baker’s choice Steam A few seconds Total bake 0:30 Temperature 420°F Damper open When bread starts to color

Milk Starter

A few years ago, I was regularly baking a naturally leavened loaf with white flour. It consistently came out of the oven smelling like milk chocolate. I have been a professional chef for nearly 20 years, so I was certain that my nose and palate were not fooling me. however, there was no chocolate in the starter or the final dough, and it was not caused by something stuck to my baking stones.

I sought to understand why and have since discovered that a very small addition of a dairy product into the final build unlocks a specific sugar within the wheat particles that is also found in the cocoa bean. try putting a few ounces of organic milk into the final build of your naturally leavened dough and bake your loaf dark. When the bread is baking, the scent of chocolate will be obvious to you.

the realization that different aspects of wheat particles could be unlocked led me to find other activators. Logic

and experimentation led me to harvest different yeast strands from host environments to unlock various sugars, starches, and proteins. these variations produced different characteristics in the finished loaf, with flavor being most affected.

Pear Starter

try beginning a starter with a slightly overripe pear placed near the opening of your initial mix of organic flour and purified water. Also try another initial mix without a pear and put it a great distance from your starter with the pear.

After 48 hours at room temperature, taste the difference, smell the difference, and observe the difference. You will probably notice that the pear has yeast cells on it; those cells migrated into the starter. Yeast strains in your bake shop also gravitated to the pear. normally, these yeast strains would not have been attracted to your starter.

As you continue building the final dough and proceed to the baking process, you will find flavors and a color profile within your pear-starter loaf that will not be in loaves made with the non-pear starter. the different colors and flavors are due to the different sugars, starches, and proteins unique to the pear.

It is my hope that these loaves will bring you the same satisfaction that has shared by my customers and colleagues. ✹

soppressata, Gruyère, Black Pepper and honey Loaf

leVain: After mixing, completely cover container’s opening with plastic wrap.

final DoUGh: The final dough should look shaggy with no dry spots.

: Add salt after 1 hour of fermentation – sprinkle some onto the dough and fold it over upon itself. Repeat until the salt is evenly distributed, which can take up to 4 folds.

: After mixing, completely cover container’s opening with plastic wrap.

Contributed by Michael Pappas

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baking hiStory

T he Manual For Army Bakers, 1916 edition is an illustrated, 123-page hardcover booklet that weighs

125 g, although its role in helping feed World War I troops gives it much more weight. In it, h.L. scott, Major General of the War Department, thanks numerous officers, but the baker or bakers who recorded their knowledge in the Manual go nameless. there is no acknowledgment of, for instance, “sgt. Dewey Doughberman, for imparting his knowledge of the essential service of baking with a mind for efficiency and an appreciation for quality bread in the garrison and field.” however, explanations of bread ingredients and fermentation, detailed discussions on how to bake bread for an army in times of peace or war, and instructions on how to produce bread in a mobile, wood-fired bakery and then pack it for transport to troops in the fields are clearly written by regular Army bakers with deep knowledge and experience in the ranks and on the bench.

the information in the Manual is broken into three broad and overlapping

categories: baking science and methods, how to bake in garrison or field, and the logistics of moving and setting up a mobile, wood-fired bakery. the format of the text in this Bread Lines article stays as close as possible to the Manual. sometimes the formatting simply draws attention to the information. For example,

“the baker must know what accelerates and what retards fermentation.” In other passages, the formatting seems to command the baker to do what’s best in order to make good bread, “The combination thermometer is for use and not for ornament.”

The Context of US Army Baking in 1916It’s important to understand the geopolitical climate and possible career context of that regular Army baker on the eve of a terrible struggle that would eventually take away the satisfaction of eating bread from 117,000 American soldiers. After years of President Woodrow Wilson’s attempt to keep the country out of World War I, the united states declared war on Germany in April 1917. Although Wilson hadn’t increased the size of the military since hostilities broke out in europe in 1914, preparations for war had been undertaken. The Manual for Army Bakers 1916 was likely part of that preparation.

the experienced voice behind the text, though, seems to reflect more than a few years of baking experience. Many of the succinct comments are packed with information from somebody who had managed a bakery production large enough to know that in rail shipment, flour “sacks should be laid lengthwise of the car, ears toward the center.”

there are clues to the careers of those who likely spent their baking lives within the u.s. military. there are two references to the Philippines, one in regard to freshness of flour delivered there “after a long voyage in the hold of a ship” and also a strange preferment cultured from palm sap. It seems likely that sgt. Doughberman was a long-time Army baker who spent time in the Philippines during the 1899–1902 Philippine-American War, where the over 100,000 service persons needed to eat bread.

During the first decade and a half of the century since the Philippine War, mechanization for the World War I-era Army baker changed in the bake shop as well as on the battlefield. Diagrams in the Manual are given for the construction of 14' long wooden mixing troughs, but it is noted, “these troughs have in the larger bakeries been replaced by steel troughs, which are easier to keep clean. the latter are mounted on rollers for more convenient use in connection with the dough mixer and for running in and out of the proof room.” It is evident that mechanization is beginning to enter the commercial bakery, although all (very sparse) mixing instructions are for hand mixing. Instructions are given for building a wood-fired oven out of barrels or carving out “an Oven in a steep bank.” however, wood-fired, “knockdown type” ovens are covered, with detailed instructions on how to assemble, fire, use, disassemble, pack, and load them onto a wagon for transport to the next site.

And those Guild members who deliver bread will appreciate that the Manual includes instructions for packing bread on both a horse-drawn escort wagon and a truck.

Dough Boys: US Army Baking in the World War I Era

By Richard

Miscovich

Guild Member and Associate Professor • Johnso

n & W

ales - Providence,

RI •

“Good bread is in a class by itself, and Army bakers fill a most responsible position in supplying this most important component of the ration.”

– Manual For Army Bakers, 1916

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In addition to compressed yeast and motorized delivery trucks, the era’s technological ‘‘advances” also included tanks and poison gas. A grim war machine had “mutated” during the career of an Army baker on active duty since the Philippine-American War. Just 14 years earlier, the conflict in the Philippines had claimed the lives of 6,000 American and 20,000 Filipino soldiers, and the conditions of war, including terrible disease, led to the deaths of 250,000 Filipino civilians. In contrast, the ‘”Great War”’ would claim 15 to 18 million lives distributed across those categories. Reading the Manual is sad when you think about the terrible carnage happening, and about to happen, at that time. the Manual was published in late november of 1916, near the end of the 11- month-long Battle of Verdun and its more than 700,000 casualties.

In the BakeshopWho trained sgt. Doughberman? Like Americans of many eras, he seems like a hybrid of old and new worlds. Mechanization of the bread baking process isn’t as prevalent as the reliance on the time-saving use of compressed yeast. Bread hadn’t yet been diminished by high-speed mixing, excessive yeast ratios, and humid, high temperature fermentation environments … although there are heavy hints of the arrival of that American baking style. still, the

professional and practical insight of unnamed Army bakers comes through the text. those parts of the book are, perhaps, most identifiable to today’s bread baker. the detail-oriented voice we hear in ourselves and the bakers around us is predated in this 100-year-old text. Often the point is understated, but the implications are important in the education of a baker: “A pale loaf results from an absence of sugar, a slow oven, or an old dough.” And clearly there was an observant baker who put forth the idea,

“A dough may be compared to the human body … You can not get good work out of an underfed dough any more than you can out of an underfed man.”

the phasing out of preferments in Army baking can be seen before the broader u.s. bread culture was taken over by no-time doughs. the Manual calls preferments ‘”Liquid Yeasts’” and seems conflicted on whether it recommends them or not, based on time savings compared to the importance of being able to provide bread in the absence of compressed yeast.

“56. Liquid yeasts … are the most common yeasts prepared by Army bakers. they are really old-fashioned yeasts, and are generally considered as out of date or behind the times, and they have been almost

entirely displaced by the compressed yeasts, which are great savers of time and trouble and a boon to those who do not or cannot make liquid yeasts. All Army bakers should know how to make and use liquid yeasts, for there will be times that compressed yeast is not obtainable.”

they are the most common yeasts prepared by Army bakers, yet they have been almost entirely displaced by compressed yeast. Is this passage a philosophical struggle between officers and enlisted men regarding time management vs. quality bread? And again, the poignancy comes through when one realizes that the conditions contributing to unobtainable compressed yeast are the vagaries of war and the complications of an imminently tenuous supply chain.

the words sourdough or naturally leavened bread are not mentioned, but instructions on how to build a culture

baking hiStory

LEFT: Two-barrel clay oven. RIGHT: “Field Oven NO. 1 partially set up on brick fire box.” The Manual states Field Oven NO. 1 “will bake approximately 3,500 pounds of issue bread, or 2,000 pounds of field bread, per day, if operated continuously.”

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are described. Potatoes and plain flour, among other ingredients, are used to start these cultures, referred to as

“virgin.” however, “stocked” preferments, that include compressed yeast, are also detailed as to their preparation.

“69. Flour yeast, “virgin.” – Recipe for 1 gallon:Ingredients: 4 pounds flour, 3 quarts water, 1 ounce sugar, ¼ ounce salt.

Put water to boil. Put flour in earthen or wooden receptacle. Dissolve sugar and salt in water.

When water is heated to 125° F. add 1 quart to flour, enough to make a stiff dough, and work up by hand. Allow remainder of water to come to a boil

and then add to flour dough gradually, stirring well to make a thin batter. set to cool. When cooled to 80° F., keep at that temperature for from 48 to 60 hours, when it will be ready to use.

70. Flour, yeast, “stocked.” – Made with same as above, except when cooled to 80° F. stock with ½ ounce compressed yeast, 1½ ounces dried yeast, or 1 pint of stocked yeast. should be ready in from 18–24 hours.”

the Manual does not include a “Care and Maintenance” section that details how to keep the naturally leavened preferment healthy and ready to use.

the reliance on the speediness of compressed yeast is understandable when

one considers the ambitious time frame expected to set up a field bakery and have it producing bread. “If the entire company and transportation are available, the field bakery can be unloaded from the cars, hauled 1 mile and set up ready for work in six hours.”

the military approach to rank and responsibility works out very well as far as consistently ensuring good bread. The Duties Of The Chiefs include the following responsibility:

“133 … he takes particular care that the water used in making doughs is of the proper temperature to give an average for flour, tent, and water of 240° F. (234 in summer, 246 in winter).”

In addition to the water temperature calculation, the Manual also discusses the cons, pros and importance of two different army issued thermometers.

“167. Thermometers – the oven thermometer is of the expansion spring type. these thermometers do not register alike, and bakers must learn the registration of the thermometer for each oven to give the proper baking temperature. some ovens will have the right heat when the expansion thermometer registers 450° F., others at 600 (sic) F.”

Combination – the combination thermometer is for use and not for ornament. If the thermometer is not used to get temperature of the flour and mixing tent before making the dough, the water used must be taken by guesswork. Apparently unexplainable differences in the time of proving of doughs or appearance of different runs of bread can usually be traced to lack of use or carelessness in the use of the thermometer when mixing the dough or regulating the heat of the mixing tent. the case of the combination thermometer is practically indestructible if used with any ordinary degree of care.”

uncle sam wants YOu to control your temps and doesn’t mind getting snarky about it. It seems as though it drove sgt. Doughberman crazy when bakers told them they were determining water temperature by feel. he seemed equally bothered by improperly cared for equipment. having a broken thermometer is no excuse. It seems poignantly naïve to call a thermometer case “practically indestructible,” when lives, fierce steel machines, and miscellaneous cases were being destroyed all around the world.

But what about the bread and other baked products? this publication is not a cookbook but a manual to make bread,

“… this most important component of the

baking hiStory

TOP: Field bread packed on escort wagon. BOTTOM: Field bread packed on truck.

b r e a d l i n e s – s p r i n g 2 0 1 6 { 4 1 }

ration.” there are only two main types of bread in the Manual, Garrison Bread and Field Bread. there are some variations for products like graham bread, salt-rising bread and sweet dough, etc., but Garrison Bread and Field Bread are emphasized.

144. the type of bread baked in a post bakery and distributed to troops is familiar to all. It is usually designated as garrison bread.

Field bread is the term applied to a type of bread having a greater density, a thicker crust, and a consequent higher capacity for retaining moisture than garrison bread. … On account of its thick crust and great density it will keep fresh longer than garrison bread, and, as it is hard and firm, it can be transported with less danger of being damaged through rough handling … In order that the bakers be kept proficient in the making of field bread, it should be made and issued once a week in permanent camp.”

In the Manual, Garrison and Field Bread formulas both have options for using either straight dough or sponge methods. here is the formula and parts of the methodology for making a straight dough field bread.

146. Field bread (straight dough), 144 pounds. – Ingredients: 105 pounds of flour, 3 pounds sugar, 2 pounds salt, 8 ounces cottonseed oil (or lard), 12 ounces compressed yeast, about 6 ½ gallons of water.

Mix into a very stiff dough. Dough should be ready to punch the first time in four and one-half hours. Punch second time after one hour. scale at 4 pounds 8 ounces, round up and flatten out into a round loaf about 1½ inch thick. Allow only 15 minutes’ proof in the pan. Just before putting in the oven make a round hole in the center of the loaf with the ends of thumb and forefinger joined together. this hole is of sufficient size to permit the gas to escape and will result in a loaf less liable to crush in transportation, less subject to mold, and with a smoother appearance than one that has been slashed across the surface with a knife.

baking hiStory

the advantage of the rounded loaf, flattened out, is in the tighter union of the bottom crust.

Allow the chamber doors to remain open the last 15 minutes of baking.

Bake for one hour and a half at 475° F., letting fall to 450° F. last half hour.

When making continuous runs of field bread divide the four men of the unit into two shifts of two men each, each shift working eight hours, and taking up the work at the point left off by the preceding shift. the shifts should alternate from day to day to equalize the work.

For field bread make a dough every hour and 30 minutes. seven runs can be produced in 16 hours by this method. this is considered an average day’s work for a unit and is about the maximum amount of work the men can stand continuously, although they can provide 10 runs per day for a short time.

there are also numerous formulas in Appendix C. Ready Reference Table for Cakes, Etc., intended for the permanent garrison bakery but not stated as such. the 46 recipes include a pound cake base, a selection of layer cakes, 3 pie crusts (1 with butter, 2 with lard), Plum Duff no. 1 and Plum Duff no. 2 (both with suet and needing to be steamed for 5-8 hours), wedding cake, cocoanut (sic) macaroons, lemon jumbles, and wine cake containing brandy but no wine. Appendix C is a table printed on fold-out onionskin. the products appear on the vertical axis and the ingredients listed along the horizontal

axis include “Ammonia, “h. h.”, rosewater (used in the wine cake and lady cake), and the inclusionary category labeled

“extracts.” there is no yeast in the ingredient selections, so Appendix C was a nod to the pastry side of the bakery. It is a lovely table, concise and useful.

Marching on its StomachThe Manual For Army Bakers, 1916 has this passage tucked away into the section titled Duties of Personnel.

131 … the officer in charge. he can consider his mission accomplished only when the troops are promptly supplied with good bread, both in camp and on the march.

We can only hope that the Army bakers’ successful completion of this mission made war a little less hellish for anybody who ate from sgt. Doughberman’s bakery.✹

TOP: Baking in the open trench. BOTTOM: Field bread out of the oven.

{ 42 } t h e b r e a d b a k e r s g u i l d o f a m e r i c a

baking reflectionS

IN THE CURRENT ERA THE GOODNESS OF WHEAT IS UNDER ASSAULT. THIS BOTHERS ME. I THINK THAT WHEAT IS WHOLESOME AND THAT WELL-MADE PRODUCTS CREATED FROM WHEAT ARE ENJOYABLE AND NUTRITIOUS FARE.

But there have been some very specific allegations made against wheat: “a perfect chronic poison” said one very loud commentator. Within our own community, so-called “modern wheats” are demonized by some. Is there any credence to these allegations? There are a lot of possible and valuable perspectives I could take, including discussions of mineral content, and flavor and aroma, particularly in relation to the modern versus old perspective. However, this article is focused on just one aspect: gluten.

What is gluten? Gluten is a group of seed-storage proteins found in the endosperm (floury interior part) of wheat grains. Wheat includes all types: common hard-grained bread wheats, common soft-grained wheats, einkorn, emmer, spelt, and durum, among others. Gluten-like proteins that are problematic for celiacs are also found in barley and rye. The gluten-forming proteins in wheat are made up of two types: gliadins and glutenins. After the addition of water and mechanical energy to wheat flour, these proteins combine to form the functional gluten that gives wheat flour doughs their

gas-holding and viscoelastic properties. Gliadins contribute flow, and glutenins contribute elasticity in a wheat-flour dough. Of the two types, the gliadins are considered the more problematic in the triggering of celiac disease.

So, about gliadins. In Wheat Belly, the author makes this specific statement, and, astonishingly, people believe it: “It is an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the ‘60s and ‘70s ... such as there’s a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It’s not gluten.” It took 0.4 seconds to come up with 10,100 results after typing “Triticum monococcum gliadins” into Google, and 0.04 seconds for 1,420 results in Google Scholar! Triticum monococcum is einkorn. Einkorn has gliadins, and einkorn is definitely not a product of genetic research in the 1960s. The statement quoted above is simple, unmitigated nonsense.

With respect to the “18-inch tall plant,” a lot of the demonization of so-called modern wheats and veneration of the older tall-straw wheats stems from this apparent stepwise change that began, in North America at least, around the 1960s. But reduced-height wheats were around for a long time. I have a picture from the 1920s of the Italian wheat breeder, Nazareno Strampelli, standing in a field of mature wheat that comes only up to his belt. Strampelli brought short-straw wheats from Asia, via the Japanese variety, Akakomugi, to Europe around 1918. Also, it appears that short wheats were around in Korea at least 1,700 years ago1. The most commonly deployed reduced-height genes are naturally occurring, and they have a traceable heritage. For example,

some have blamed the variety Norin-10, the donor of the most widely deployed reduced height genes to North America, for “all the problems with wheat.” But by any current reckoning, Norin-10 is an old wheat; the cross was made in 1924. And Norin-10 has a venerable pedigree. One of its parents is Turkey Red. On the other side the parent was an unnamed line,

“Daruma x Glassy Fultz.” The Japanese variety, Daruma, was the short wheat, and Glassy Fultz was a reselection from an old American variety/landrace called Fultz. There is no discontinuity. The “modern” wheats derive from the older wheats in an unbroken lineage. Even in the USA there were early short wheats, notably the 1794 variety, Forward, that produced “one third less straw on a short stem.”

But make no mistake, there are problems with wheat. Celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder, is the most recognized. There are also a group of true allergies associated with wheat. In addition, there is the more controversial concept of non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). Even in the clinical world this concept has been challenged. Alessio Fasano, M.D., of Mass General Hospital insists that his evidence shows the existence of NCGS. Jessica Biesiekierski and Peter Gibson from the Gastroenterology Department at Monash University in Australia have found “no evidence of specific or dose-dependent effects of gluten in patients with NCGS” when the patients were fed diets low in specific types of carbohydrates that are fermented by gut bacteria. The Australian researchers prefer the term “non-celiac wheat sensitivity,” because, although some folks may be sensitive to eating

GlutenB y a n D r e w r o S S Guild Member and Professor, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR

baking reflectionS

wheat, in their view it may not be the gluten. Additionally, even Alessio Fasano’s research group has NCGS topping out at about 6% of the population, a much smaller number than the number of people who are, for whatever reason, avoiding gluten.

Another issue has been the increase in celiac disease itself. It has been shown, with reasonable certainty by Dr. Joseph Murray’s research group at the Mayo Clinic, that the increase in celiac disease is not just an increase in diagnoses, but an actual increase in incidence over the last few decades. Why the increase? There has been, in my view, a reflexive response to blame changes in the wheat. But what about all the other changes that have happened in our environment in the last 50 or 60 years: hygiene, antibiotic prevalence, gut microbiome changes, among others? What about evidence that other autoimmune disorders, unrelated to wheat, are also on the increase? And anyway, how much has gluten changed over the last, say, 100 years?

Dr. Hetty Van den Broek and co-workers published evidence that the gliadin types more likely to trigger celiac disease were more frequent in a narrow selection of wheats from Germany, bred since 1980, compared to a much more varied collection of older

wheats collected from 1863 to 1982. However, it is important to note that the gliadin types more likely to trigger celiac disease were still present in the older varieties, just at lower frequency. They were not absent. Additionally, evidence that the gliadins in spelt have sequences active in celiac disease shows the celiac triggering proteins have been around for a long time. In the glutenins, which are less associated with celiac disease than the gliadins, there have been systematic changes over the last 100 years. A pair of glutenins associated with weaker gluten has been systematically replaced in bread wheats with another pair associated with stronger gluten. So there is evidence that the glutenins, at least, have systematically changed. What that means for celiac disease and NCGS remains unclear.

This short article is by no means comprehensive. That would take a book, and the article leaves more questions unanswered than answered. For example, I have not addressed the “processing hypothesis,” which speculates that short fermentations are the perpetrator of issues with wheat. I don’t subscribe to the processing hypothesis; my evidence

is the commonality of un-fermented wheat products

throughout the world and since antiquity. In my view, the lack of answers in this

article reflects the state of play. We have unanswered questions about gluten, celiac, NCGS, the gut microbiome, gut parasites, and immune modulation. No doubt we have suspects, but also in my view, no smoking gun that says: This is the perpetrator! So much has changed around us in the last 60 years that maybe we’re seeing a perfect storm that predisposes more people to maladies they would have avoided 100 years ago. In case you think it is just me interpreting the world this way, I leave you with these thoughts from Dr. Alessio Fasano: “We also know that [celiac] prevalence is rising … Based on our study, it seems that prevalence has doubled every 15 years in North America. Why? I think it goes back to the microbiome. There are antibiotics, our diet has changed, we travel more. There have been so many changes in the past 50 years.” ✹1Supplementary list of suggested further reading available on the Guild website for members.

Dr. Andrew Ross is a Professor in the Departments of Crop & Soil Science and Food Science & Technology at Oregon State University. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest: Dr. Ross’ research funding comes from wheat growers and from the milling and baking industries.

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