Ingredients: Ingredients really do make a difference. If your only ingredients are flour, water and sea salt you better pay attention to the ingredients. I will start with the flour, we use only King Arthur Flour that is never bleached, never bromated. After quite a bit of research I found that KAF has the tightest tolerances in the industry, have a great support team and just plain performs best. Initially I considered using an organic flour, but chemicals and GMO’s are not an issue with wheat flour yet. If I were to use any corn flour I would absolutely use organic. For those of you that bake at home I would suggest using KAF.
We also use filtered water to ensure that there are no hidden additives or influences on the final product. For salt, we use as little as possible and only use natural sea salt. Pretty simple, really.
French Country Bread
A good friend of BRB suggested that I take up the Blog again and share some our new ideas, philosophies and tidbits of education. Here we go:
Q: What is Artisan Bread?
A: The only word more abused than Artisan is Gourmet. I believe that there are 4 factors that determine whether a bread is Artisan or simply commercial bread.
Time: It takes time to create wonderful bread, much like wine, beer & BBQ. Most mass produced and cheaply produced breads only take a few hours from mixing to selling. At BRB it takes 2-3 days to knead/shape/proof our breads and this does not count all the time and love to nurture our natural leavened starters. Too many people and businesses act like the most important variable in their life is time. Faster is better is their mantra. At many commercial bakeries they can have a finished loaf of bread in less than 2 hours after the flour gets wet.
Final 3 Factors: Ingredients, Leaving & Technique will be discussed next.
The only real complaint that we get, and that is not too often is, “Those cookies are too big!” Our fans can relax, we aren’t going to shrink or downsize our orginal Huge cookies, but will instead do a special offering every month. We will be calling this our Cookie of the Month. Every month we will create a cookie up to our amazing standards but sized like a more normal cookie. These will be packed a dozen in a heavy re-closeable bag for each portion control.
We started this new program in February with a Raspberry Dark Chocolate. We thought that was perfect for Valentines Day and a great way to start off. This was made with a European cocoa, our own blend of melted chocolate, pure raspberry and coated with a raspberry powder sugar. Mmmm, it was a good start, but wait until you see what we have planned next for March!
In conjuction with this we also lauched a Cookie of the Month Club. This is great as a gift program for a loved one or special client, but we have sold several as a regular delivery for a personal treat.
Let us know if you have any suggestions for future cookies. This is a chance for us to stretch our wings so to speak and try out cookies that aren’t quite up to Toby’s tastes to be one of Toby Tobin’s Seasonal Cookies.
Trail Mix Cookie
Or do you at least love nuts? “What do you have with nuts” is the one request we get that is hardest to satisfy. “Nuts” is such a broad category with much segmentation. We have pretty much stayed away from anything with peanuts because of severe peanut allergy and our paranoia. We are finally loosening up a bit and have put several systems in place (like double washing equipment in 2 different sinks) so that we can use nuts more often.
We decided that we would not just throw a nut into an existing cookie but create a cookie from scratch that really showcases the flavor of nuts. Our Trail Mix came into being because of our chocolates, but that is a different story. Those of you that know us could guess that this is not your ordinary Trail Mix. First of all we decided to not only include cashews, but big cashew halves. Instead of whole almonds (kind of hard and overwhelms the mix with its texture) we went with almond slivers (lots of them) and peanuts. To balance out the Trail Mix we added dried cranberries and raisins.
We have heard people comment that each bite of our Trail Mix Cookie offers a different experience. Based on the response that we have received thus far, this will not be our last Nut offering. If you have a specific nut that you love that was the feature ingredient in a cookie, chocolate or dessert, tell me about it.