Saturday, July 4, 2009

Bread Crumbs

Happy 4th of July!

The Declaration of Independence is a really elegantly crafted argument and document, if you haven't had the chance to read it recently I highly recommend it:

http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/



Ok - now back to bread baking. Bread Crumbs are an important aspect of any bakers life. There are a few ways of making bread crumbs:

1) Keeping old home-baked bread until it's stale and then chopping
2) Buying old bread from the supermarket (all supermarket bread is old bread, trust me - its not fresh and there are plenty of preservatives in there to fool you) and throwing into a food processor

The way to make option #1 successful is to keep the bread in a Ziplock bag. It will still go stale, but it won't loose all it's moisture and will be easier to dice with a knife (and not have it be as hard as a rock). After a few days just fire up the oven (preferably when baking a fresh loaf) and put the diced bread in a foil-lined pan and bake @ 425 degrees for 13 minutes.

Option #2 is great if you happen to eat all your home-baked bread before there is any to go stale. With this option just go to the store and buy a few baguettes and dice them into 1-inch blocks. Then toss them into a food processor and either simmer them in a skillet on the stove or throw them into the oven as described above.

My friend Gary says it takes a good 8 petite baguettes (4 normal) to make bread stuffing for 12 people.

Don't forget to bake!
-Matt the weekend baker

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