INGREDIENTS - Rye Flour

Next to white and whole wheat, rye is the most popular flour for bread making. Although rye flour contains some proteins, these do not form gluten. Therefore, breads made with 100% rye flour are heavy and dense.
To make a lighter rye loaf, it is necessary to use a mixture of rye and hard wheat flours. Typical formulas call for 25 to 40% rye flour and 60 to 75% hard wheat flour.
Rye flour is milled much like wheat flour.The lightest rye flours, from the inner part of the kernel, have a low extraction rate, corresponding to patent flour.

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INGREDIENTS - European Flour Types

In much of Europe,a grading system based on the ash content is dominant.For example, the grades T45 and T55 are white wheat flours with low ash for breads and pastries.T65 includes high-gluten flours, and T80,T110, and T150 are whole wheat flours of increasing darkness. Other flours are included in this grading system. For example,T170 is dark rye flour.

Bread flours from European wheats are generally lower in protein than North American bread flours.Typically, they have a protein content of around 11.5%. Some North American mills have begun supplying similar flour for artisan bread bakers seeking to imitate classic European breads.

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HAND TOOLS - Scrapers

A bench scraper, also called a dough scraper, is a small rectangle of stainless steel with a handle along one of the long edges. It is used for cutting and portioning dough and for scraping tabletops. 

A bowl scraper is a piece of plastic about the same size but with one curved edge and no handle. It is used for scraping out the contents of mixing bowls.

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Baking and Pastry Equipment - Introduction

Much of a baker’s art and craft involves simple tools. 

Learning to be a skilled baker requires developing a great deal of manual skill using these tools. For example, a pastry bag is nothing more than a cone-shaped piece of fabric or plastic, open at both ends. Although its construction is simple and it requires no operating manual, hours of practice are required to become skilled at using a pastry bag for decorative work.

At the other extreme are large machines such as floor-model mixers, ovens of many types, and dough-handling equipment such as molders, dividers, and sheeters. Of these, perhaps only ovens are essential to a baker’s work. The other items are important laborsaving devices that enable the worker to produce goods in large quantities with greater speed. Without them, much of the work of a bakeshop would not be economically feasible.

The next posts are an outline of the most important pieces of equipment used by bakers and pastry chefs, from large equipment to containers and molds to hand tools. Learning to use these tools is the subject of much of this blog.

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Formulas and Measurement

Bakers generally talk about formulas rather than recipes. If this sounds to you more like a chemistry lab than a food production facility, it is with good reason. The bakeshop is very much like a chemistry laboratory, both in the scientific accuracy of the procedures and in the complex reactions that take place during mixing and baking.

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The History of Baking

Baking is one of the oldest occupations of the human race. The profession that today includes baking artisan sourdough breads and assembling elegant pastries and desserts began thousands of years ago with the gathering of wild grasses and seeds and the grinding of those seeds between stones.
Today the profession of baker and pastry chef are growing quickly. Thousands of skilled people are needed every year. Baking offers ambitious workers the chance of finding satisfaction in an industry that is challenging and rapidly changing.
Before you start practicing, it is good to know a little about the baking profession.

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