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Bakery Days 124, 125, and 126: ketchup time


Dear friends, I have no idea what happened with the time but it is clear I missed two days of posting so today I will catch up on what has been missed.


As you know from the 7th, tapas on Friday was sushi. We sold out by reservation. That was a great feeling. I admit it would have been nice if a few pieces made their way home to the house, but this is life. I am much happier to feed others than to worry about me.  I think the way tapas has been going it could be better to do it by reservation only.  I am not sure about tapas this week, I am thinking about making single sized pizzas instead.  I will be working alone and it could prove to be just a bit too much.

Saturday was a very quiet day. As slow as almost it could possibly be. We did not sell all of the breads even, and that is sad. But Sunday turned out to be better than Thursday, and better than Friday.  I do not know why but I am very happy just the same.

Now that we are back to six days a week I have been working in the bakery today (closed day) since 7:30 am.  It is now 5:30pm and I probably have two more hours of work.  I need to get as much done as I can today since I will be solo tomorrow. That means get all the baking done by 9:00am when the doors open and then work the front until 2:00pm.

Today I used the laminator for the first time. It took a little getting used to. I could also see the butter was not quite as soft as it should be so the result was the lamination was not perfect. What I realize is that the machine makes this work much faster and much easier, but it alone cannot make the perfect laminated pastry dough. This still requires the other ingredients to be perfect and ready.

What I love about the machine is I get the exact night of the pastry dough that I desire. So, my final setting today was 3.8mm. I think 4 feels a little bit thick. But let’s see. If this is indeed too thin I will know tomorow morning when I bake the croissants.

Oh, on Sunday I think we sold 38 croissants. That is a top five day for sure. I remember a while back having a day in the 40’s but I think anything over 25 is incredible.

Lastly, I cannot be happier with the results of the breads lately. I changed my stragedy a little bit and I see it is really making a difference. I believe the uncontrolled fan in the oven was causing me the most problems. So now I use more steam and longer and the breads are rising beautifully and the crusts look like thy are supposed to, not like oversized potato skins.

I am sorry I missed a couple of posts and I will do my best to get a video up my Wednesday. It is going to be hard but I will do my best. In the meantime, thank you so much for stopping by.

#doeverythingwithlove
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