Ah, these customers – they make you work hardest when you’re at your tiredest.
Just starting a well deserved week’s rest before the Christmas rush but before we finish we have to do a Thanksgiving bake for our American customers. So for specials we do Thanksgiving Bread, New York Rye and Orange & Cumin Flatbread.
With the main weekly special I would expect to do 7 or 8 small and around 10 large loaves on a Thursday and fewer – 4 or 5 small, 7 or 8 large – on a Friday. This week it was 9 small and 17 large on Thursday and 7 small and 17 large on Friday. One customer, who throws a big Thanksgiving dinner for the other ex-pats, ordered 5 large specials and 15 baguettes.
It’s fantastic bread though – wheat and rye flours, rye starter plus pecans and cranberries soaked in bourbon and orange juice. Mind it’s really heavy dough to work – moan, moan, moan.
The PArtisan Baker 
You need another holiday before the Christmas rush methinks!
Too right.
Hi Mick, Did you ever use the einkorn? My other bag is still in the garage, haven’t figured out how to chop it up yet. Could you taste the bourbon in that bread? It sounds like a rich and substantial loaf. Are you going to make stollen for your lucky customers again this year? I have made some 99 percent leavened panettone, and next time I do it I think I’ll leave out the 1 gram of yeast that I superstitiously put in and see if I can see any difference. What a long drawn out process though…
Ohmydog – I’ve been so busy I totally forgot the einkorn. Maybe I should grind it and mail it to you and you could mail me the unground.
I would say that the bourbon just added to the depth of flavour but I think other people have more subtle taste-buds than me – I only really included it to add to the loaf’s Thanksgiving allure (as opposed to any other booze).
This year I’m making a Greek Christmas bread for my lucky customers. It’s the family recipe of one of my customers that I’ve besourdoughed from some very vague instructions (8K of Flour, 24 coffee cups of Olive Oil, etc.).
Finally someone has listed panetonne cases in reasonably small quantities on ebay. Just in case you are ever doing those again. And some nice looking star cases too http://stores.shop.ebay.co.uk/greenearth-food-packaging-company__W0QQ_armrsZ1 .
GCB, olive oil not eggs?