Awkward Wealth

[photoguy]

You can get a crusty loaf by adding steam in the first 5-10 minutes of baking. I have a gas oven. Don't know if you can use an electric oven.

Adding water to make stream never worked for me in my gas oven. I think it vented too quickly.

In addition to a clay pot, you can cook the bread in any covered container where it will steam in its own moisture. I've used a dutch oven, casserole dish, turkey roaster, etc. Just take off the lid midway through baking.


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[MooreBonds]

You can get a crusty loaf by adding steam in the first 5-10 minutes of baking. I have a gas oven. Don't know if you can use an electric oven.

Place a cast iron pan on the floor of the oven. Preheat oven, spray the dough with water before placing in oven, use a long handled soup ladle or long spout kettle to dump water into the cast iron pan and quickly close the door. Caution because dumping water in hot cast iron pan can shoot out and burn you.

The one (and so far, only) time I tried making bread, it was a recipe from Julia Child's The Way To Cook bible. It was for a French loaf, and Julia said to take a cup of water and toss it into the bottom of the oven to make the steam, and quickly close the oven door. I followed her instructions. (I was using an electric oven)

My bread had issues with the rising (it had a decent airiness to it, but it sagged out to the side instead of having enough dough stiffness to rise), but the crust was decent. I don't know if the "toss water and hurry up and close" method worked or not, but it would definitely make a larger amount of steam - in a much shorter period of time - compared to a cast iron or misting method.

Not saying it's better - just offering what I think Julia had suggested (that is, I think that's what she had advised. It was about 16 years ago when I tried making it, and my memory may not be perfect).

 

[Andre1969]

About cars, I am not into that, so do not have much to add either. However, I just remember that I happened to run across a Bricklin recently while traveling in New Brunswick, and did take some photos of it. Surely, some people here would remember the Canadian-made Bricklin which was said to be the inspiration for the DeLorean.

Wikipedia said that less than 3,000 Bricklins were made before the company went bankrupt with much controversy involving the then Premier of NB Province. The car I saw had the serial number of 1956. It was said that each car cost $16K to make in 1975 ($68K in 2014 dollars), but was sold for only $5K to be price competitive.

I've heard of the Bricklin, but have never seen one in person. I'm surprised they cut the price to $5,000. Even though 1975 was a long time ago, $5,000 didn't really get you a whole lot of car back then. My grandparents bought a new Dodge Dart Swinger that year, and my Mom bought a new Pontiac LeMans coupe. Each of those was around $5,000.

I used to think it was weird that a 6-cyl compact and a V-8 mid-size would be so close in price, but one day I looked them up in an old car book. A slant-6 Swinger was around $3510 base price and a V-8 LeMans was around $3590. So, by the time you added a things we take for granted today, but were optional in those days, such as power steering, power brakes, a radio (I think even AM was still optional), air conditioning, and so on, it was easy to get them to around $5K.

According to Wikipedia, the '74 Bricklin used an AMC 360 V-8, while the '75-76 used a Ford 351. I'm surprised they'd use a 360 as the basis for a sports car. I'm not too up on my AMC engines, but by '74, I don't think there were any really high performance versions of the 360 around. My uncle had one, in a 1976 Jeep pickup. It was good for pulling tree stumps, and off-roading, but was anything BUT fast.

I don't think Ford was getting much performance out of the 351 by '75-76 either, but at least that was a lighter, smaller engine, and better suited to an exotic car.

Interestingly though, the Wikipedia article said that road tests of the time showed the Bricklin compared favorably to the Corvette. So maybe Bricklin took those boat-anchor engines and hopped them up some? Plus, by that time, Corvette performance had really fallen off. Around the '74-75 timeframe, the fastest US production car was not the Corvette, not the Camaro or Firebird, but, get this...the Dodge Dart Sport/Plymouth Duster, with the high-output Mopar 360 (not to be confused with the AMC 360, which was a totally different engine)

 

[JoeWras]

I've made bread the old fashioned way. It is a lot of work. I'd love to resurrect my grandmother's recipe, but it very clearly called for cake yeast. I believe it was key to her unique bread. This stuff is now impossible to find. Anyone know of sources for it?

Today, I just use a bread machine, once a week. Better than nothing. And don't tell the gluten police. I actually add gluten to my mixture.

 

[LoneAspen]

I've made bread the old fashioned way. It is a lot of work. I'd love to resurrect my grandmother's recipe, but it very clearly called for cake yeast. I believe it was key to her unique bread. This stuff is now impossible to find. Anyone know of sources for it?

Red Star sells it - Their web site below has a place to enter your zip code to see if there's a place close by that sells it.

Cake Yeast | Red Star Original

If no luck with that, try seeing if a local specialty grocer, or maybe a Whole Foods or Sprouts, could get small batches for you.

 

[HFWR]

Who cares what someone else drives or how they obtained it?

I tend to agree. Never understood the obsession with cars.

Some do, but I'm not one of them. In fact, I don't really understand the whole obsession with "stuff"...

 

[FUEGO]

Aldi had the white wheat on clearance this morning for $0.49 cents a loaf. Feeling rather rich, I splurged and picked up 2 loaves. I'm wealthy enough to outsource my breadmaking.

 

[MooreBonds]

Aldi had the white wheat on clearance this morning for $0.49 cents a loaf. Feeling rather rich, I splurged and picked up 2 loaves. I'm wealthy enough to outsource my breadmaking.

Does Aldi's have much on clearance by you? I've shopped 3 different area Aldi's near my house, and about the only thing I've ever seen on clearance have been the whole, bone-in hams after Easter and Christmas.

 

[GTFan]

Man I love Aldi's, I'd buy everything we need there if only they kept it all in stock.

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Although i dont want this to devolve into a discussion about who among us can afford a decent kitchen scale. That would be awkward.

I just upgraded to a new digital scale with a tare function. Finally!!!

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Adding water to make stream never worked for me in my gas oven. I think it vented too quickly.

In addition to a clay pot, you can cook the bread in any covered container where it will steam in its own moisture. I've used a dutch oven, casserole dish, turkey roaster, etc. Just take off the lid midway through baking.

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I bought a small hand pump garden sprayer. Fill it with hot water and douse the sides of the oven 3 times in 1 minute intervals right after putting loaves in.

The loaves need to be steamed right away before the skin stiffness.

 

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Aldi had the white wheat on clearance this morning for $0.49 cents a loaf. Feeling rather rich, I splurged and picked up 2 loaves. I'm wealthy enough to outsource my breadmaking.

Sorry, that's not actually bread. That's bread-flavored food stuff.

 

[CaliforniaMan]

Sorry, that's not actually bread. That's bread-flavored food stuff.

+1 Great comment! Made me laugh! I am glad I didn't post about our making "bread" using a waffle iron.

 

[MBAustin]

Baking bread when it is hot has a bit of challenge - do you bake at night before throwing the house open to cool or get up with the dawn..

And then there are those of us who live where it doesn't get cool enough to "throw the house open" from April until October...sigh. Last night it got down to 68 which at least meant it wasn't hot to walk this morning. Progress!

 

[calmloki]

I bought a small hand pump garden sprayer. Fill it with hot water and douse the sides of the oven 3 times in 1 minute intervals right after putting loaves in.

The loaves need to be steamed right away before the skin stiffness.

I use my covered cast iron pans - chicken roasters or slant sided cook pots - and throw 3-4 ice cubes in on the oven rack after I put the bread in. I imagine it makes for a bit longer steam time, but who knows!

In an alliterative addition to the bread and auto digressions, I've been playing with my new-to-me 1997 buttless bimmer - a 318ti. Not many around now, and even fewer with the very impractical cloth California roof. The 318ti was BMW's cheapest car back then, a hatch to which America said "Eh. Meh". Gonna feel real fine parking it next to the ranks of more common luxury cars down south, which only cost their owners 20-30 times more money to buy.

 

[braumeister]

Probably more expensive than most would like, but I've used this for a few years now and can say that it does the job beautifully.

Long Covered Baker

 

[splitwdw]

I've made bread the old fashioned way. It is a lot of work. I'd love to resurrect my grandmother's recipe, but it very clearly called for cake yeast. I believe it was key to her unique bread. This stuff is now impossible to find. Anyone know of sources for it?

Today, I just use a bread machine, once a week. Better than nothing. And don't tell the gluten police. I actually add gluten to my mixture.

Why do you think it's a lot of work? I make bread a couple times a week once the weather gets cooler. I don't use a bread machine. Around here cake yeast is available starting in the Fall in a couple grocery stores and at all the health food stores. Look in the refrigeration area. My great grandmother loves it but I use dry yeast, regular and instant/rapid rise.

 

[FUEGO]

Sorry, that's not actually bread. That's bread-flavored food stuff.

As long as they keep putting fiber in it, I'll stay a regular customer.

 

[FUEGO]

Does Aldi's have much on clearance by you? I've shopped 3 different area Aldi's near my house, and about the only thing I've ever seen on clearance have been the whole, bone-in hams after Easter and Christmas.

They used to have stuff on clearance all the time. Not so much recently. Maybe 1-2 worthwhile items in a given week.

 

[brewer12345]

Why do you think it's a lot of work? I make bread a couple times a week once the weather gets cooler. I don't use a bread machine. Around here cake yeast is available starting in the Fall in a couple grocery stores and at all the health food stores. Look in the refrigeration area. My great grandmother loves it but I use dry yeast, regular and instant/rapid rise.

I am both lazy and cheap, so I buy a brick of dry yeast from Costco for under $10. I use it until like 6 months after the expiration date and I have yet to use the whole thing before tossing a fair amount and buying a new one. Dirt cheap, especially compared to what the little packets in the supermarket cost.

 

[calmloki]

I am both lazy and cheap, so I buy a brick of dry yeast from Costco for under $10. I use it until like 6 months after the expiration date and I have yet to use the whole thing before tossing a fair amount and buying a new one. Dirt cheap, especially compared to what the little packets in the supermarket cost.

Same down south, but keep it in the freezer and actually used up a block. Up north I buy a dab from the bulk foods isle for pennies and use that.

 

[dallas27]

Does anyone have a suggestions for unique ways to save money by using a paperclip? You know, so I can accrue wealth faster and feel awkward.


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[JoeWras]

Why do you think it's a lot of work? I make bread a couple times a week once the weather gets cooler. I don't use a bread machine. Around here cake yeast is available starting in the Fall in a couple grocery stores and at all the health food stores. Look in the refrigeration area. My great grandmother loves it but I use dry yeast, regular and instant/rapid rise.

It is a lot of work because I still have a j*b (see OMY) and I don't have time to knead, proof, and bake. I just dump the ingredients into the machine in the morning, and come home to baked bread.

However, once I FIRE, I want to get back to real baking.

I've looked for the cake yeast in the fridge section and can never find it. Red Star's site says it doesn't come this far south. I dunno, maybe southerners don't use this stuff. It is still available up north. Perhaps I finally found the one thing I really miss moving south -- oh, and there are those Chicago style hot dogs too.

 

[splitwdw]

I am both lazy and cheap, so I buy a brick of dry yeast from Costco for under $10. I use it until like 6 months after the expiration date and I have yet to use the whole thing before tossing a fair amount and buying a new one. Dirt cheap, especially compared to what the little packets in the supermarket cost.

Same down south, but keep it in the freezer and actually used up a block. Up north I buy a dab from the bulk foods isle for pennies and use that.

Brewer, I buy the bulk packages from one of the warehouse clubs too.

Calmloki, I pour the bulk yeast package into a glass container and store on the fig door. Never had a package go bad either.

It is a lot of work because I still have a j*b (see OMY) and I don't have time to knead, proof, and bake. I just dump the ingredients into the machine in the morning, and come home to baked bread.
However, once I FIRE, I want to get back to real baking.

I still work full time also.

 

[clifp]

OMG reading (ok skimming) this thread, is causing me to wonder if there is a new episode of the Twilight zone. What happened to the nice forum folks..

Oh and I for the record at times I feel awkwardly wealthy with the Tesla. But it is such a conversation starter...