Le Quartier Bakery

Time to take a breath and then get back to it

2011-11-05T19:41:00.000-05:00

This is the first weekend, since the farmers markets started, that there aren't any. It was so nice. Both Friday and today were short days and for now gave me some extra time to relax and catch up on my sleep. I know that I can't catch up on 6 months of sleep deprivation but any extra amount can't hurt.

The exciting thing is that now I can spend time on all of those projects that got pushed to the back burner. Things like honing in on what Le Quartier is and how to give us a broader appeal. Then, how to market that to new potential customers.

There is also work to be done with our baking system. In a few short months, both my main baker and my brother will be new first-time fathers and their lives and schedules will need to change. Giving everyone a later and more flexible start time will great. Not only for them but for me too!

There is also new product research to be done. A lot of times we'll start something but not quite have the time to finish it. For example, I made a pie crust that could sheet through Rondo but I have yet to actually make a pie. I love pie and have been picturing myself devouring an apple and rhubarb pie that I've been saving the ingredients for.

I hope to be able share all of these new changes with you in the next 6 months. Until then good night...

Farmers' Markets Update

2011-05-28T09:31:00.001-05:00

Here we are, four weekends into the farmers' market season. In previous years, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were hectic getting ready for and doing the markets. Monday through Wednesday were days to recover from the work load. This year has a different feel. We now have so many accounts that every day seems jam-packed. From an accounts recievable standpoint, my brother Seth's job, this is a great thing. From a bake-it, make sure it gets done standpoint it gets tougher. How to get it all done in the few open days that we have? That is a good question. I think that we have become more efficient. In fact, I know that we have. I guess that it's just apart of the growing pains of our bakery. As of today, Seth and I have one day off per week. My goal for this summer is to figure out how we can get two days off per week, despite all the extra work. I know that we can. Working harder and smarter will be the solution. Hopefully more smarter than harder because I think that we already work pretty hard. What I want is the ability to have a little bit more time to stand back and enjoy what the bakery has become and where it's going.

Pastry Heaven

2011-05-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

I am very proud of our pastries. I hear often that they compare, if not beat, pastries that one can find in France. In fact, I can vouch for that. I can say the same thing for our bread. I measure every bakery that I go to by two things; their croissants and there white baguettes. If you can do those two things well then everything else has to be great.

I am very happy to announce that we have now switched to a Plugra-style butter for our laminated pastries. Even though it costs more, it is worth the cost for the gain in its flavor profile. Everyone at bakery, hands down, loves this butter. I hope that you can taste the difference and love it as much as we do.

One pound of buttery goodness

Turkey Avocado Club Sandwich

2011-04-30T16:56:00.002-05:00

Our new lunch menu, currently only at Lincoln's Meridian Park, has been out there for about two weeks now and there is a clear winner. As you can probably guess, from the title, it's the turkey avocado club sandwich. With good reason too. I think it's a nice improvement from the turkey club panani with its rich brioche dough, bacon and avocado balance nicely with lean turkey and veggies. It just melts in your mouth. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Here is the making of one.

1) Sliced brioche, bacon, cheddar,
mayo and turkey.

2) Just out of the oven after being toasted.

3) With greens, red onion, avocado and tomato.

4) Cut in half. Look at all of that goodness. Ready to be served and eaten!

Mega + Batard = Megatard

2011-04-30T16:40:00.000-05:00

It's been a while but the stars aligned this morning and produced something very special. So special in fact, that Steve and I changed our facebook profile pictures because of it.

What am I talking about? The mysterious and rare megatard, in other words, a very big loaf of bread. We were planning on one of our normal Saturday wholesale clients to order their normal baguettes but they ended up not. So, what to do with an extra 20 lbs of dough? We could recycle it, which we normally would do but we're already sitting on a bunch of extra dough so I decided to bake it. And, this is what we got.

We've made other megatards. I wish I would still have those photos. But, there will be more to come.

Battle of the soup bases...house-made stock vs. canned broth

2011-04-25T10:32:00.002-05:00

It shouldn't be too much of a shock that stock is better than broth. But, who knew that it would be more cost effective? It was a surprise to us that we could make our own stock for significantly cheaper than buying prepared broth. For years we had been using canned broth in our soups and thought we were making a good compromise between a cheap powdered soup base and an expensive homemade stock. Then a few months ago we found that our soup ingredient cost was too high and did some brain storming to figure out what was wrong and what we could do to remedy it. In the end, we're making better tasting soups and sticking to our budget. Life is good for our soup eating customers and us!

Left: chicken broth Right: chicken stock

Easter Eve Breaks Baguette Record

2011-04-23T05:50:00.000-05:00

I guess someone read my post a couple of months ago about me wanting to bake more baguettes. Thanks! With the extra accounts that we've gotten in the past month plus the holiday increase we baked 475 baguettes this morning. I'm not really sure what the previous record was but I'd guess around 400. We haven't even hit the farmers' market season or a big holiday yet. I'm getting what I wished for and I'm a little afraid. It would be nice to have a second oven and a lot more cooling racks. That will have to be added to the bakery wish list.

This also is a good time to note that last summer I was happy to reach the one pallet of flour per week. That's fifty 50 lbs bags or 2500 lbs. Right now I'm running at around 70 bags per week. I'm hoping that by the end of the summer I'll have reach the two pallets per week mark.

Le Quartier Meridian Park Gets New Lunch Menu

2011-04-18T16:23:00.003-05:00

This is a long time coming! We thought that we'd be opening up an expanded lunch menu around November 2010. There was so much going on internally that we weren't able to make it a reality until now. Now everyone is in their place and with the extra time we've come up with some extra special sandwiches and savory flat bread. also known as a square pizza, lunch items.

You can download the new menu at Meridian Park Lunch Menu.

I'm really excited about our new menu and I hope that you give it a try!

Yogurt Parfait

2011-03-19T17:52:00.000-05:00

We have new breakfast option!
We certainly thank everyone that has been enjoying our buttery pastries all of these years. But, if you need to take a break and want something new we have something for you.

Our pastry chef, Chris, came up with this idea and a great granola recipe. Both Steve, fellow baker, and I have been playing with making our own yogurt at home for a while now. We all joined forces and what came out of it is this granola and fruit yogurt parfait; made from house made granola, house made yogurt (with live cultures) and a blue berry, raspberry and strawberry fruit blend.

It has become a new favorite with the bakery staff and I suggest that you ask for a sample at the bakery.

We will be using in season fruit when it becomes available. We can't wait for peach season!

First Parfait Made

Another Lesson Learned...Actually a Few

2011-03-19T17:29:00.002-05:00

I'm writing this, I guess, mostly for myself; to remind myself that I can only only do so much. That I am good at somethings and not so good at other things. I have my strengths and my weaknesses. Yes, everyone does. Now, change "me" to "the bakery" and the story continues.

I'm writing this because the past 4 to 5 weeks have been extremely hard on me. Way too much stress for this time of year. The winter is normally a slower season and it gives us all time to rejuvenate from the busy holiday season which follows the busy farmers' market season. That all sounds nice but at the same time there are still the same bills to pay but less revenue. To remedy this the bakery took on a new client that asked us to do something that we weren't used to doing. In fact, something that we aren't very good at doing because of the type of equipment that we have. Our training and our equipment do an excellent job at baguettes, croissants, ciabatta, etc. The learning curve was steep and the hours were brutal. Throw in a streak of employees calling in sick and I was about to call in the towel. Previous to taking on this account we had made projections on material and labor cost. These approximations were based on a quasi similar product, but much more simple, that we have been making for years. I quickly realized that we were way off. You can imagine how I felt as I worked an extra 4 hours almost every day on this product knowing that I was running in circles. Things have been tough at the bakery before, especially early on, but I think this was the worst I have felt.
Something had to change. We analyzed more accurately what was actually going into this product and changes were made. This is actually a good thing to do every now and then on every product; to make sure everything is in line. Since then I have trained a baker to take over for some of the duties that I had early on. This has helped a lot and I've been getting more me and sleep time. Both of which make for a happier John.

In my perfect world, restaurants would be banging down the door for those things that we do well. Unfortunately, I live in a world where that doesn't happen often enough and I guess that's what I get for opening up an artisan bakery (But, I wouldn't want to be baking anything else!). So when I go off from our core product line I need to be very cautious. Yes, with every mistake I learn something new; but, I'm also afraid of how many mistakes are out there to make. It's more fun to learn from my successes!

Obviously, this client will remain unnamed and I hope that it will stay that way. It wasn't their fault. We told them that we could do it. The blame lies solely on myself .

Pre-ferment Experiment Update

2011-02-16T17:54:00.000-06:00

Not to dissuade you from reading the rest of this post, I don't have good news. After two weeks, the liquid was pretty much stable, unchanging. It had a distinct, albeit weak, apple cider vinegar smell and taste. Yes I tasted it along with a few other brave souls at the bakery. I swore to them that it would bring health and vitality...it did make my stomach a bit queasy but, don't all old-time health remedies. Back to the test. I had hoped that the vinegar taste would "evaporate" from the final product revealing a magically tasting loaf. If not that I thought that possibly the acid would give the bread a longer shelf life. To do a true test I made a straight dough along side the pre-fermented liquid dough. After baking them we all tasted the two loaves. The apple cider vinegar taste was still there; not surprising. The next test was to put one of each type of bread in its own plastic bag and wait. I put them in the office so I would notice the first sign of mold. Alas, both breads molded at nearly the same time. So on both fronts I lost.

Not is all lost though. I will do another test with whole wheat flour. I will allow the liquid to ferment for a couple of weeks but this time I will take some of the liquid early on, while it's still "sweet" to test it for it's flavor profile in the bread. Hopefully then I'll have happier things to write about.

Everything Eggs

2011-01-29T14:22:00.000-06:00

Today was the last day for everything eggs as I knew it. Everything eggs is exactly what it sounds like...we take everything we can get our hands on and make an omelet with them. These things amount to our sandwich fixings and anything that we put in our breads. Over time we figured out what went best with our favorites. For one, we developed the "bakery trinity" which is jalapenos, onions and olives. To start, we'd take bacon and the trinity and cook these together in our cast iron skillet. In the oven of course because we didn't have a stove top. The bacon would render it's precious fat and caramelize the onions and saute the olives and jalapenos. While this was happening we'd make our egg mixture by taking 2-3 eggs per person, ham (preferred over turkey), chipolte mayo (we like it extra spicy), our choice of cheeses (usually not Swiss, never blue, pepper jack and cheddar is good, Havarti adds an extra silky texture and provolone is a good bet too), salt and pepper and mix it together. When our trinity was ready we'd pour the egg mixture in and let it cook slowly being very careful not to over cook the eggs. I hate dry eggs. I want my eggs to be creamy and wet. My mouth is watering just thinking of it!

Why is this era ending? This coming week our kitchen will move up to where the bakers are and with it all of there ingredients. I'm certainly not complaining because now the possibilities will exponentially expand. However, in this environment everything eggs would just be too ridiculously all over the place. Even though it was fun to make the most of what little choices we had, now we'll be able to concentrate on certain themes.

The last Everything Eggs with fresh baguette. Yummy!

Pre-ferment Experiment

2011-01-23T14:28:00.000-06:00

This may be a bit premature but I thought I'd get you on at the ground floor. Prior to posting my umami post I had mixed 1 kg of rye flour with 10 liters of cold water and about a teaspoon of instant bread yeast. I Mixed it up and waited. Of the different flours that I use rye flour is the most "active". All things being the same in a recipe, one made with rye flour will proof the fastest. I've also read that it has a high level of enzymes that will break down its starch and protein faster. So I chose rye flour. My original plan was to use just the liquid to add flavor to my dough so the rye flavor of the flour wouldn't really come through in the final product.

On day one, there were some bubbles coming up and it didn't really have much of a smell. On day two, there were still bubbles but it had a definite smell of alcohol and faintly of apples. On day three, there was a definite smell of hard apple cider. On day four, same thing very strong smell of apple cider, with more depth (like really ripe apples). At this stage the liquid on top looked relatively clear. By no means could I see to the bottom but all of the sediment was definitely at the bottom. I decided to take a taste. To be honest some people who smelled the stuff thought it had a bad smell. So, I took this as a dare and asked Kathryn, another baker who was with me at the time, if she wanted to join me. She got two little plastic condiment containers and we both took a sip. It smelled a lot more like hard apple cider than it tasted but I thought it wasn't too bad. We both showed up for work the next day so it was deemed non-poisonous. On day five, a white film formed on the top of the liquid. I had no idea what this stuff was. The smell was still that of hard apple cider but it was definitely getting "riper". At this point, my excitement and not knowing put me over the edge; I had to know what was going on in there. Thankfully I live in a university town and called up the food science department at the University of Nebraska. I left a message and am now waiting to see if I can get some help from someone. I'd like to me sure levels of umami, organic acids, anything that might give me some insight into what is going on in my bucket; not to mention in all of my pre-ferments and long fermented breads. Today is day six and the film has thickened/chunked up a bit. It smells similarly but as things have been going, even more ripe apples. I don't want to say rotten because it's not that. Steve and Kathryn think it smell like wet dog after having a bath with apple scented shampoo.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll let this go. I hope I can bring it in to get tested or better yet, start a systematic testing program to see what things change over set periods of time. I hope I can find someone who is as interested in this as I am.

Below are some photos that show you what has been going on with my little experiment.

Day 2

Day 4

Day 6

Since I started writing this post I have heard back from the food science department. They told me that the machine that would analyze my solution was booked up and I'd have to go to a commercial lab to have it tested; which, depending on the tests I wanted could cost me a lot of money. Well, I don't have a lot of money. I certainly have a lot more questions than than money. This means that I'll have to do the tests myself and my taste buds as the test equipment.

As I finish this post, my hooch is at day nine. I will make a dough soon and will let you know how it turns out.

Umami Me

2011-01-14T10:50:00.006-06:00

Over the past month or so I've become obsessed with umami. What is umami? Instead of trying to explain it I'd suggest you take at a look at this site for a full answer. If you didn't want to go there let me give you my quick answer. It's a 5th taste (like salty, sweet, sour, etc.) but instead of having a real "taste" it enhances and rounds out the other flavors. The Japenese have known about this for a long time. They incorperate many ingredients in their cuisine that have high levels of umami. There are some ingredients that have a fairly high level of umami like tomatoes and mushrooms but to really get high levels of umami the ingredient has to go under some kind of fermentation. Soy sauce, fish sauce or kombu (aged kelp) have high levels of umami because they have been fermented over a long period of time. Parmasan cheese, the real stuff like parmigiano reggiano, is an something that most of us know about and used that has a high level of umami, because it has been aged for a long time, at least 2 years.

So how does this relate to baking? Something that isn't and can't be aged for years. That is true but fermentation is definitely apart of bread making; that's what the yeast does. So how do you get extra fermentation in the bread? If you've done any reading on the latest baking techniques you know about pre-ferments, poolish, sourdough starter, biga, etc. There is also something called autolysing which is simply flour and water mixed together which not only starts the gluten formation, so that you don't have to mix as long which reduces oxidation of the dough, but also activates the enzymes in the flour to start breaking down the starch and protien in the flour. In my bread I use multiple examples of this: I autolyse my flour, add serveral preferments, long primary proofing times and of couse I use yeast, except in my sourdoughs, to proof my dough. All of this adds flavor and depth to my breads which I believe can be partly attributied to hightened levels of umami.

Here are some questions that I'm working on:

How can I add even more umami to my doughs?

How can I test the level of umami in my dough?

Can I add too much pre-ferment? I know the answer to this is yes but, how much is too much?

I will be getting back to you on these questions and in the meantime if you have any info or suggestions I'm all ears.

This post is specifically about adding umami to bread dough but I've been trying to add umami into all of my cooking. It has definately raised my cooking to a new level and I highly suggest you give it a try.

Wrap Up for 2010

2011-01-13T13:42:00.003-06:00

What a year it was.  It started out fairly normal but how did it change.  In Omaha there was a new Sunday farmers' market that added to our list.  We almost decided to not do it. Sunday was kind of our day to take a breath.  But, by this time we were seriously considering to open an Omaha location and we needed the money to get it up and running.  We knew that we wouldn't be able to borrow any more money so we had to do it all on our own and a lot of sweat equity.  As if this wasn't enough, we decided to expand our Lincoln store to add extra seating and production space.  This expansion we didn't do ourselves, thank god.  We're crazy but not that crazy.

Everything went as usual, behind schedule.  We were supposed to open the Omaha store by early September.  That didn't happen until my birthday, October 6, a good birthday present.  I was so exhausted from working on that store I've only been back once, for about ten minutes.

The Omaha store has gone quite well for us.  You can read a little bit about it in the Omaha world herald. Us being in the Top 10 Restaurants, our Food Review and another small blurb. I feel very blessed have had such a great response to what we do at our bakery. It has really made me feel that much more commited to our quality and expand our product line. We have a lot of good ideas but it's hard to find the time to test and then get them into production. I have to really focus on efficiencies and where it's best to spend my and everyone else's time.

Our Lincoln expansion is actually still in process. The holidays took a toll on the plans here but now that we are in our slower time of the year we are back up and running on this project. If you look at my Rondo posts you can see the one major piece of equipment that we are learning how to use. By the end of next week we should have a new kitchen area ready to go and that will allow us to make new and more breakfast and lunch goodies for our stores. I just stole one of the new hires, that was going to help as a prep cook, to help me with a line of hamburger buns for a new Omaha client. I've had the hardest time finding good bakers that stick it out so I get priority when we do find someone. I'm excited about getting more of the production staff back into one place and see what can happen when we put our heads together.

So this is where we are right now. A new year with many opportunities to come and hopefully everything goes well and we can take advantage of them.

Thanks for supporting our bakery and we all hope to see you in 2011!

Not Your Normal Monday

2010-10-31T13:18:00.000-05:00

There are many things to worry about when running a small business but this past Monday brought extra drama. While on our normal Omaha wholesale deliveries our delivery van was stolen. The police and FBI came to investigate. Then only a few hours later we found out that our delivery van was used in a bank robbery. When we found that out we actually found ourselves laughing. Not at what had happened but just how crazy the whole thing was. We were pretty stressed out, not to mention our delivery person. He wasn't hurt, thank goodness! This past Friday the van had been found and impounded at the police impound lot. We'll pick it up this week and hope to find it in good working condition. Not to mention our bread trays. We've been hurting for them in a big way.

Here's a short story in the Omaha paper about the crime.

Freezer Baguette = More Sleep For Us Bakers

2010-10-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

Steve, one of my bakers (check out his blog "Latest Dish" in my blog list that I follow), was asking me the other day if when I started this bakery, almost 5 years ago if I thought that I'd be in the position that I'm now or the bakery in it's position that it's in now. I thought for a few minutes and answered. To be honest, I thought that I'd have better in-store sales. I guess that I'm not in the same culture where getting fresh bread everyday is as important as in Montreal or France. I'm not kidding; in the bakery in France that I worked at would sell 1500 baguettes on a Tuesday and 2500 plus on a Saturday. It was a small bakery too, smaller than the space we are in now. It was insane! We do have fairly good wholesale accounts so that somewhat makes it up.

Then he asked about our process. This is where the real progress has been. Starting from day one I used the traditional French methods because that's all I knew. Being the engineer that was trained to be, I tested my process and my doughs to see how efficient I could be and still end up with the same and in most cases even better end product. We are now in the process of our next phase of product development. From the beginning, our sourdoughs were always formed ahead of time and baked that day, up to 3 days out. But, our yeasted doughs (baguettes, cheese breads, ciabatta, etc.) were always made that morning. That means that we have to get to work at either Midnight or 1 a.m. That's early. Too early. So over the past few months we have made considerable effort to find a way to use the same idea with the sourdoughs for our yeasted doughs. The problem with our yeasted dough is that if they spent too much time, 3+ hours, in our walk-in cooler they would collapse and after baking they'd be junk. What we've developed is a system where we use our stress-free Rondo dough machine (check our my Rondo posts) to process dough which then goes directly into our freezer. Our dough has been formulated to handle this process with as little stress as possible. Then the day before we take our frozen formed dough and put it into our our retarder/proofer (a machine that allows you to program temperatures and humidity at specific times) and bam, the dough is ready to bake by the time that we need it to be baked. An added benefit to this process is that the dough goes through a slow fermentation process that adds an extra dimension to our breads. We noticed that our baguettes that go through this process have an extra buttery tastes that lingers much longer in the mouth than our regular baguettes do. There are other differences, the crust and interiour crumb for example. I wouldn't say that it's better or worse, just differnt. The final word is that we are very happy with the baguette and we are very excited to get an extra two hours of sleep.

Below are some photos from our tests on the freezer baguette.

Left to Right: Straight from walk-in, 30 mins out of walk-in, 2.5 hrs out of walk-in

4 hrs out of walk-in, a little over-proofed

Tray full of test freezer baguettes

Beautiful crumb structure of our freezer baguette

Le Quartier in Omaha, NE

2010-10-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

We have been open for over a week now, almost two by the time I'm getting this post out there, but I have only updated our website a couple of days ago. I think that we needed a week for a "soft opening". Call me conservative but, there are always things that you can't predict that need to be worked out before you want a long line at the order counter. I wasn't there myself, Seth was but, it was a good decision. We saw different product demands at our second Lincoln store and we knew that it would be the same in Omaha so we wanted to have some time to see what those differences would be. Surprisingly our pastries aren't selling as well as in Lincoln and lunch is a big success.

Overall, we are very pleased with our first week in Omaha. Honestly, compared to our Lincoln stores it was a home run. Maybe it's because we were that much more prepared at opening a store or maybe it's the city. We have seen a lot of love from Omaha but we are now almost four years old so I thinks it's a combination.

Below are a couple of photos from our training day where we opened the door and some people came in to take a look at what we were up to. We sampled breads, pastries and cakes and hopefully enticed some people to come back when we were actually open, Tuesday October 11, 2010.

There are a few things that we'd like to add to our bakery in Omaha. We'd like to have products like olive oils, spreads, anything that would compliment bread and French wine by the bottle. Our blue cheese loaf and a bottle of Burgundy goes hand in hand (be careful not to finish both in one sitting).

Training day customers, Oct. 9, 2010

My mom supervising and Seth in the back helping out a customer

To Be Or Not To Be...Artisan

2010-09-25T12:41:00.001-05:00

What does it mean to be an artisan bakery? Doing everything by hand? Doing most things by hand? Using all natural ingredients? Why am I even asking this question? I even have my own employees asking this same question. To begin, I do consider my bakery to be artisan. Why? Well, I use all-natural ingredients, time-tested European recipes, mixing methods and baking procedures. Can I still be considered “artisan” even though I use machines to help me produce my bread? Some may question this but I have wisely, I believe, chosen the machines that I use to help me actually do a better job of making my bread. Should I mix my dough by hand to be artisan? Should I form every loaf by hand to be artisan? Should I bake using a wood fired brick oven to be artisan? All legitimate questions. There are pros and cons to every stage and decisions that each baker makes in producing his/her bakery products. Mixing with a machine can deteriorate the flavor profile of the dough. Forming by machine may force you to lower the hydration of your dough, producing a worse crust/crumb. Baking in modern oven may produce a worse crust, lessened oven spring, etc. There are also economic realities that will help determine which direction the baker will go. In a recent article in Modern Baking I read about a bakery that expanded into a near 100,000 square foot bakery and still claimed to be artisan. To be honest I was a bit skeptical myself but from reading the article I think that they may be legitimate.

This is what I think makes my bakery artisan:

- Ingredients: Only all-natural

- Mixing: I use an “improved” mixing method which means it fully mixes the dough with minimal oxidation of the dough. I use a spiral dough mixer because I need to be able to mix up to 400 lbs of dough at a time. To help me reduce oxidation of my dough I autolyse the flour in my recipe, which reduces the mix time.

- Forming: This will drastically change with the addition of my new stress-free Rondo Smartline machine. From what I’ve seen so far it will be even better for my dough than forming by hand. For example, when I was in France the bakery formed baguettes by cutting strips of dough using a hydraulic dough cutter. This required some squishing and stretching, by hand, to get the piece of dough into the right shape. It is very similar to how we handle the dough for our ciabatta loaves. This will inevitably degas or malform sections of the dough piece before division. The Rondo Smartline is designed to minimize this as much as possible while allowing me to process many times the amount of dough that I could by hand. It seemed like a no brainer. With this machine my bread will be better than before. No question. However, it does work on a smaller tolerance level than by hand. This part of the equation will need to be worked out.

- Baking: Both the bakeries in Montreal and France used a gas, stone multi-deck oven. Like those bakeries I need to be able to bake on demand throughout the day with consistent results. I’m also able to get reliable steam and radiated heat on each deck to get a great crust and oven spring which is much more difficult with a wood fired brick oven. I also want some sleep so it’s nice that I can turn on a “cold” oven and within an hour have an oven ready to bake in.

If you have any thoughts on this subject I would love to hear them. I want to make great bread and I want more people to demand great bread from their bakery.

3rd Phase For Le Quartier, Part 2

2010-09-25T11:39:00.000-05:00

This past week has been one of the toughest weeks that I can remember in recent memory. It reminds me a lot of when I moved into our current space; doing the normal production and then working on the upgrades to the bakery. Double duty is a real...pain in the butt. My other bakers, especially Martha and Steve also got a good dose of it too.

Early in the week the pieces of equipment came in; the Rondo Smartline and Polyline, the bagging machine and a used double rack gas oven. The Rondo Smartline is a stress-free dough processing machine that I chose to buy so that I can process my well hydrated dough more quickly and consistently. This is especially important for my restaurant accounts that desire a consistently sized product. There are my in-store customers and smaller café-type accounts that can work with a hand formed product but we are at a point where we are trying to attract larger, multi-location, restaurants that require more consistency. For example, my ciabatta has improved in two ways by being degassed less and being divided at exact dimensions than by hand. The bagging machine, which I haven’t had a chance to use that much right now, will hopefully be able to bag most of my large quantity breads more efficiently. So far I’ve had marginal success with it. Like most new things there is a learning curve and like the Rondo I’m at the very bottom. At this point I think we’re actually slower than doing it the old way. No, I know that we are slower with the new machines. We just need more practice; I’m guessing at least 3 months of practice. The final thing that we bought was a double rack oven to bake our pastries and some breads faster. The thing with used is that it can end up being VERY used. My brother and I rejected the first oven but found another used oven that, yet not up and running, looks like it will do a fine job for us. The next time I think that we will buy new. It’s more expensive but there are fewer surprises.

Here are some photos of the what the week was like.

Rondo Being Unloaded

Rondo Installation (Seth supervising)

Bagger Installation

First Bagged Bread

Rondo Ciabatta

Steve With First Rondo Baguette

3rd Phase for Le Quartier, Part 1

2010-09-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

Phase 1 was working out of a rented kitchen on North 27th St. Phase 2 is currently in our current bakery space, 70th and O St., with several commercially sized pieces of equipment. We now have about 2200 square feet of space with half dedicated to the retail space and the other half towards the production side of the bakery. Phase 2.5 was adding a second retail location at 27th and Pinelake Rd that included some dedicated space for pastries, cakes and savory items. The 3rd phase is going to add about 600 square feet towards the retail and about 1500 square feet towards the production side. One of the things this new production area will do is consolidate the production of pastries. This will be really nice for us because right now we make the pastry dough at our north location and have to send it south. It will also make room, not a lot, for a stress-free dough forming machine. This is what we are most excited about. It will be able to form most of our doughs more consistantly and quickly than with our current methods. It will also be able to laminate and cut our croissant and puff pastry doughs; also, more consistantly and quickly.

For all of you that like to see what's changing, my next post on this subject will have photos of my current baking space and the new.

Wood Fired Brick Oven

2010-08-27T09:38:00.007-05:00

This post is about a personal project of mine. I have started what has turned out to be quite an ambitious project to build my own wood fired brick oven. Before I started my bakery I purchased the book "The Bread Builders: Hearth Loaves and Masonry Ovens" by Allen Scott and Daniel Wing, with the thought that maybe I'd build my own oven. When I was living on my parent's farm, in Hampton, NE, I built a very rough oven based on the plans from this book. I didn't bake any loaves in this oven but I did learn that a very hot oven can make some fantastic pizzas. This was the inspiration for my current project. Now in my house in Lincoln, NE I have the space for a real brick oven that can bake both bread and pizzas. The oven that I've chosen to build is based on an Italian brick oven that I'm told is popular throughout Italy. You can get the plans free, like me, at http://www.fornobravo.com/. These plans are similar to what Allen Scott has described in the previous mentioned book. As for mentioned, I thought that I might use this type of oven in my bakery but after seeing this type of oven used commercially decided that I would use a gas fired commercial oven for its regularity and convenience. There are enough factors to control with the dough itself that I felt that I didn't need to add another layer of complexity. The oven that I use now is from Italy and is similar to what I used in Montreal and France that I didn't feel like I was cheating the process. Almost four years later I am very happy with my decision. This project is for my own personal satisfaction. I love making my own pizzas and why not make them in my own backyard pizza oven?

The first photo is where I've decided to build the oven. My schedule hasn't allowed me a lot of time to work on the oven. I'm embarrassed to say how long ago I started on the foundation. The second photo is where I am up to date. It shows the four posts that I've poured to support the foundation and the dimensions of the oven. It seems quite large but the oven dome that will rest on the foundation will end up being 42 inches in diameter with some room for the opening. I hope to have an update soon that shows a lot of progress. I want to have this oven done before the end of the year. I've been talking about this to my employees for a while and they are expecting a pizza party. I can't disappoint!

Before digging.

Dimension of the oven and four posts poured.

Le Quartier Location in Omaha, NE

2010-08-15T11:45:00.000-05:00

It is time, whether we're ready or not, to open a bakery in Omaha. Along with my brother Seth and our father, we have been working hard to get our new location up and running. We still have a lot of work yet to do but we are making good progress. Fortunately for us it was a bakery before so there are some things that we can work with. Where is it you ask? 92nd and Pacific in Countryside Village surrounded by like tenants and a nice neighborhood. We are "the neighborhood bakery" after all and this is why we felt that this location would fit us perfectly. We will bake and serve the same great breads, pastries and cakes that we have at our two Lincoln locations and will have sandwiches, soups and salads to go.

It has been difficult for us to find time to work because on top of our normal baking we attend 4 farmers' markets We used to get one day off and now that day has become building/moving/painting day. I hope that all of our hard work will pay off and everyone that visits Le Quartier Omaha will be happy with what we've done, especially our bakery goodies!

When will it open? Hmmm, good question. I am hoping to be open sometime in the first half of September, 2010. Exact date will be coming.

I'd also like to thank:
My Mom
Henry and Elenor Pauls (Aunt and Uncle)
Amy Dishman (designer, wife of one of my bakers)
Sarah Curley Quiring (my brother's wife)

How do I summerize?

2010-07-27T13:32:00.002-05:00

On my first post, I am a bit overwhelmed as I look back at how I got here. On my description I've given you a bit of a history and now I want to fill in some of the gaps.

By formal education I am an electrical engineer. I've spent a few years doing that and then spent another few years as a computer programmer. At either of those jobs I didn't feel the passion that I thought that I wanted in my job. That led me to make a decision that would drastically change my life...I moved to Montreal. I didn't really know what I would be doing there but I wanted a change. Seth, my brother, was working there for a large aerospace company and offered me a place to stay. By this time I was an obsessed home baker and with lots of free time in Montreal, without a job, I was able to bake a lot. It was great because not only did I have an image in my head of the perfect loaf of bread, I also had many great bakeries in my new found home that had great bread to strive towards. After a while, both Seth and I got tired of me not having a job and he suggested that I try to get a job at a bakery...I was baking all the time anyway so why not get paid for it! So how was a guy like me, no real baking experience, language barrier, supposed to get a job at a bakery. I had to be creative and the only thing that I had to prove that I kind of knew what I was doing was to "attach" a loaf of my best bread along with my resume. I went to several bakeries in my neighborhood and to my great fortune the best bakery in the city, others would tell me, gave me a chance. Those first few months were very tough. Getting used to a 3 am start time and being able to understand only a few words in French and being expected to not slow down production. I felt like I was over my head but I really wanted to learn how to really bake. I knew from the beginning that if this was my new career that someday I would open my own bakery. So no matter how bad it got I would persevere and I was going to learn as much as I could. I was put onto a rotation of all the stations and after I completed them, during the next 9 months, I felt like I had a solid foundation in the style of this commercial bakery. Eventually I improved my French and my baking skills enough to convince the bakery owner to send my to one of his friend's bakeries in France. I was excited! It took a while to get the paperwork filed but soon enough I was on a plane to Paris, France. The head baker in Montreal, that I first learned from, had gone to work for the same bakery in France. It was nice to have at least one friendly face. I stayed with him until I found my own place. I quickly found myself in the most difficult work situations that I've ever been in. If you think that French people are lazy I have first-hand experience to say quite the opposite. They worked amazingly hard. Even though I felt like I was in a military boot camp I have a very high bar to reach towards for my own bakery. I actually didn't work in Paris but just south of there about 20 minutes on the train in Sceaux. It's most famous for having a summer home of Louis XVI, I think. After working there for 6 months I was ready to come back to the states and start my own bakery. After some consideration, Lincoln, NE, seemed to be the most logical place...no other artisan bakery, close to family and relatively inexpensive to set up.

This now gets us up to where my description starts up.

In future posts I will elaborate more on the life of my bakery but, right now I have others ideas that I want to get out.