Fire Island Bakery | A Girl and a Skillet

Posts Tagged ‘Fire Island Bakery’

27
Jul
2015

Summer Days

categories: Breakfast and Brunch, Life in Alaska, The Kitchen

These days are involving less cooking, not necessarily a bad thing. We have had some really warm days up here, meaning no oven use. It is also means I have close to no energy, being 39+ weeks pregnant now. I helped the husband make toast with Fire Island bread this morning and rinsed some strawberries, that’s something. He scrambled eggs with spinach and goat cheese

If you happen to be looking for some good store bought eggs, I recommend Vital Farms. Their eggs are super flavorful and one of the highest rated eggs by the Cornucopia Institute based on sustainable, family run, humane farming practices.

A good egg

I am working less and less so that should mean more time to garden and blog and organize, and be nesty. But no, it means thinking about all the things I should be doing but can’t get the motivation to do because I don’t know where to start. I did make a to do list, and yes there are things crossed off.

What’s left:

1. Finish cleaning out fridge

2. Organize stuff to donate/sell

3. Finish writing thank you cards for baby shower (they are coming)

4. Do work paperwork (I plan on putting this off for a long time)

5. Blog

I have accomplished things like paying bills, making some freezer meals, washing the sheets (yes I had to put the on The List).

As much as I want this baby out, we still have a gaping hole in the kitchen, but it’s not as bad as it looks. The main part is done, and we can cook, clean and eat in it, what else is there to do in a kitchen? The husband is now building a pantry that will sit behind the fridge, then we should be pretty much done. If you decide to remodel your home, the general rule is that it will take at least double of what you think it will, even if you have already accounted for that. So if you think 2 months, but maybe it will take 4 because things take a while, it will be more like 4-6. We were initially thinking 3, maybe more. It’s been almost 8.

16
Feb
2015

An Evening of Sourdough at Fire Island Bakeshop

categories: Breads and Pastries, Life in Alaska, Local Restaurants, Markets

A good homemade sourdough has eluded me to this point. My bread was dense, decent flavor, flabby crust. My starter was sluggish. I could give up and head to nearby Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop and grab a loaf there. But wait! Even better, they are offering a course on DIY sourdough.

Fire Island is offering a series of Monday evening classes ranging from vegan baking to home smoking. See the class schedule for their offerings. There was a group of ten of us, and we were put to work immediately. Friendly and knowledgeable baker, Carlyle, had us start with shaping dough. Three doughs were already prepared for us. A whole wheat, a 50/50 wheat/white blend and an all white. We started shaping the loaves to give them time to proof before baking. Starting with the wheat as it was easiest to handle with our newbie boule shaping skills. By the time I reached the full white (which was a sticky and stretchy beast) I was getting a rhythm down, the idea is to create surface tension over the top of the loaf to let it rise. This is done with a gentle rolling motion while pulling the top edge of the loaf down but keeping it attached to the counter surface.

Next was on to preparing our own dough to make at home. We were provided with prepared starter, white or wheat. A formula was provided and any wheat/white flour combo was ok. We used the fold method, where every 30 minutes the dough is pulled and folded over until it no longer stretches. A nice option, avoiding the 20 minutes or so of hand kneading I usually do, but this does require a bit more babysitting as you need to be near your dough for the next 3 hours or so.

Plenty of small breaks provided time to enjoy snacks and ask questions. Why is my bread so dense? How do I steam inject my oven? Then on to the baking. Our loaves were baked in their own fancy steam injected oven. At home you can put a oven safe pan in your oven while oven preheats, once you put in the bread pour about a 1/2 cup hot water into already heated pan to give a nice bit of steam to provide that shiny, chewy crust we are all striving for.

I left with three loaves, one batch of dough to finish myself and a large bucket of starter. Maybe some sourdough pancakes are in my future as well.