Marquette Baking Company

We’re having the first blizzard of the season today.  I just checked the weather and it shows a blizzard warning until 1am tomorrow morning.  That’s life in the UP, eh?

We are going ahead with today’s Cornish Saffron Bun bake, as well as everything else on the schedule [December Bread Schedule].  Our long, slow fermentation style of baking gives our breads the quality and distinctive flavors you’ve come to expect, but it makes it very difficult to change plans at the last minute.  Everything was already put in motion yesterday, and once they are started, you either bake them or throw them away.

Thursday we are baking our monthly batch of Irish Soda Bread.  Friday we will have Stollen and Challah again.

Saturday, it’s something new for us.  We are baking St. Lucia Buns (Lussekatter). I know them as a Swedish tradition, but they may be traditional to other Scandinavian countries, as well.  The dough is similar to  Cornish Saffron Buns, but it does not contain  currants and golden raisins in the dough.  They are also are formed into several prescribed shapes and accented with dark raisins.  They are as lovely to look at as they are to eat.  Here’s a page that shows some of the traditional shapes: [Lucia Buns Photo Gallery].

Take care of yourselves. If you want to venture out, we’ll keep the coffee fresh and hot for you.

Peter

Thanksgiving is over, and on to Christmas and the other December holidays.  Of course, holidays mean special breads and that means December is a complicated month to schedule.  It’s so complicated that I actually laid out a calender for the month so that you can keep track of what breads are available when.  You can pick up a calendar at the bakery, or it will soon be on the website when you click on the “Bread Schedule” link.

Just to get you started, today (Thursday) we baked Cardamom bread, as we do every first Thursday of the month.  Tomorrow (Friday) we are baking Challah, and Stollen.  I intend to keep Challah on the schedule every Friday throughout the year, but we are baking the Stollen only in December.  I normally like to give a link to Wikipedia for something unusual, but the entry for stollen is terrible.  It decribes it as a “fruit cake” and continues to use the term “cake” throughout the article.  Stollen is NOT a cake, it is a yeast levened bread.  And in my opinion, a well made stollen is most delicious thing you can eat.  Yes, it’s loaded with butter, sugar, almonds, butter, liquor soaked fruit and butter, but it is worth every calorie and then some.  Please stop in for a sample.  We’ll have them for as long as we can tomorrow.

We encourage you to call ahead for any of our special breads.  Since the ingredient cost is so high we make them in limited quantities to avoid havinging any left over.

Peter

Dinner Rolls!  Dinner Rolls!  Come and get your Thanksgiving Dinner Rolls!

For Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we will have an expanded line of dinner rolls:
French Rolls — a crusty, chewy “hard” roll
Cracked Wheat Rolls — a softer whole wheat roll
Dark Rye Rolls — A roll version of our dark rye sandwich bread
Ciabatta Rolls — Hand cut rectangular rolls with a moist irregular crumb structure and a crisp crust

Also, don’t forget that our Sun Breads and Epi Baguettes are made to pass around the table and break into individual servings.

We’re going to have other changes to our usual bake schedule this week.  First the hours:

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday:   7:30am-6pm (normal hours)
Saturday:   7:30am-4pm (normal hours)

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we will be open 9am – 12 noon.

On Thursday morning will be baking to fill  customer orders only.  Our plan is to limit it to dinner rolls, but we will be willing to bake off a pan or two of scones or cookies.  Nothing time consuming.  We want to be able to enjoy the holiday too.

Orders for Thursday morning pickup need to be placed before noon on Wednesday.

We will be baking Cornish Saffron Buns on Wednesday instead of Thursday.  Calling ahead for those is always a good idea.

We will try to have enough product on the shelves for everyone to have what they desire for the holiday, but if you want to be certain, please call ahead and let us know.

One final note:  I have an endless number of things to be thankful for, but one big one is our customers’ support.  There are other bakeries you could go to — ones that are easier to find and more convenient.  But you chose to try ours and continue to come back.  Thank you for making the past year so successful!

Peter

Tomorrow is the last Thursday of October, so we will be baking Cornish Saffron Buns again.  It means I have to go in extra early so they are out of the oven before we turn it up for baguettes, but it’s worth it.  I love the fragrance of baking saffron and the buns are so wonderful for breakfast.

We are developing a rotation of special breads on Thursdays.  We bake Cornish Saffron Buns the last Thursday of each month, and Finnish Cardamom Bread the first.  In addition we started baking Irish Soda Bread on the second Thursday of October, and I plan to continue that.  That leaves the third Thursday to fill.  If you have any suggestions, let me know.  Something that represents the ethnic diversity of the UP would be ideal.

This week will be our last Apple Harvest bake of the year on Friday.  I’m planning to bake some extra this week, and if we  have any left over, I’ll freeze a few so I can enjoy them later into the fall.  Next Friday, we will be returning the Cranberry Pecan Bread to the rotation for November.  Last year we kept baking it until spring, but I’d like to start having a special bread every month.  I always enjoy having something special to look forward to (I’m already working on our 2009 Stollen recipe!), but I always hate to see them go.  Especially one as good as the Apple Harvest Bread.

Finally, this Saturday morning  is our last planned appearance at the Marquette Farmers Market.  Weather has been wet, windy and unpredictable throughout the month, but it is looking pretty good for this weekend.  Please stop down and see us.

Peter

We’ve been keeping our stand open at the Marquette Farmers Market and have been planning to continue doing so until the end of October.  The forecast for this week, however, caused me to call off this week’s market appearance.  Cold weather is one thing, but rain turning to snow, and maybe back to rain is not something we can deal with.  We’ll have the store open tomorrow.  It will be warm, and there will be plenty of hot coffee and tea.

We baked our penultimate batch of this year’s Apple Harvest Bread today.  It is definitely the best one so far.  The certified organic apples were provided by Sue Raker and Fred Galloway of Cloverland Apiary in Calumet.  After next Friday’s Apple Harvest Bread, we will be changing to Cranberry Pecan Bread for November and maybe throughout the winter.

Thanksgiving is the next big baking holiday coming up.  I remember that last year, it was when we first figured out how to make dinner rolls, and we made a lot of them.  Obviously, we’ll be doing rolls again.  But what else would you like us to do?  Please let us know if you have any suggestions.

Peter

We started baking our Apple Harvest Bread again last week.  We are baking it on Fridays instead of the Walnut Raisin and plan to continue doing so through October.  (We still bake the Walnut Raisin Bread on Wednesdays.)  Apple Harvest Bread is a naturally leavened bread that uses apple cider in a dough made partially with coarse stone ground whole wheat flour.  Then we add dried apple chunks to give it bursts of apple flavor in every slice.

Last year we used local apple cider, but used commercial dried organic apple for the chunks.  (I also saw in my notes that last year we used a little commercial yeast.)  This year we got enough cider (Certified Naturally Grown) to hopefully last the month from MarJayMik’s Acres.  And we are chopping and drying the apples ourselves.  Last week the apples were from Rock River Farms (Certified Naturally Grown) but that supply ran out.  This week we picked them ourselves from the backyard of one of our customers.  Another customer just brought in a portion of what we will need for next week from her backyard.  It’s a challenge to use locally produced ingredients, but it’s fun and means the products we create from them will have unique flavors and textures that change every week.

We’ve given the Cornish Saffron Buns a permanent place on the schedule — the last Thursday of each month.  Now we are giving the braided Finnish Cardamom Bread its place — The first Thursday of each month.  In other words, tomorrow.  I’m happy with the bread we developed, but we are always open to suggestions on ways to improve it.  Stop in and try it!

This Saturday from 11am through 4pm, the Coop is hosting a block party on Baraga.  A lot of the activities take place right outside our door in the Children’s Museum courtyard — Music, games, activities for the kids, free cups of coffee, luge runs, etc.  We will have samples, treats, tours and demos.  It was loads of fun last year, and also the first day we opened the retail space.  Please stop down.

Peter

Although technically still summer, fall has definitely arrived.  School is back in session, the leaves are starting to turn and fall and the local harvest is in full swing.  That indescribable scent of fall is in the air.  Next week will be the last farmers market of the season in Negaunee, but the ones in Marquette, Munising and Gwinn will running through the end of October, I think.

One problem that shows up every spring and fall is the weather’s effect on our sourdough breads.  When working without yeast, the culture needs to be just right in order to get a consistent bread volume and flavor.  Temperature affects the sourdough culture dramatically, and is the hardest thing for us to control.  During the winter and summer, the bakery has fairly predictable temperatures swings so we can adjust how we refresh the sourdough so that it is at its optimum strength when it’s time to start mixing.  In the spring and fall the temperatures are all over the map, so it’s hard to get the sourdough just right.  The last couple weeks have been frustrating because our sourdoughs haven’t been quite as nice as they usually are.   However, every day is a new chance to do it better and learn something new.  We’ll see how tomorrow’s bake goes.

We have been baking a few loaves of braided cardamom bread on Wednesdays for 3 or 4 weeks now.  Each week I’ve incresed the amount of cardamom in the formula, and even though it seems a rediculously large amount to me, no one has complained that it is too much.  We baked another small batch yesterday and there may be a couple left.  Stop in for a sample and let me know what you think.

The last Thursday in the month is early this month.  Tomorrow is Cornish Saffron Bun day again.  Stop in for a treat.  They’ll be out of the oven around 7:30am when we open.

Peter

Tomorrow is the last Thursday of the month again, so you know what that means — Cornish Saffron Buns!  People must be starting to get used to the schedule because without any announcement or reminder, we already have several orders in the book for them.  I’ll be getting up early to get them started so look for them around 7:30am when we open.

We continue to get requests, almost daily, for cardamom bread, so we will start experimenting with some test batches next week — either Wednesday or Thursday. Please stop in for a sample if you are interested.  My plan is to get it into a monthly rotation like the Saffron Buns.

I’ve been hesitant to add cardamom bread to the schedule because of the braiding it requires.  Braiding isn’t particularly difficult, but the small amount of extra time it requires when you are shaping 30 or 40 loaves of bread really starts to add up.  And while you are busy braiding, you are getting behind on all the other breads in process — never a good thing.

NMU is back in session, and the other schools will be opening shortly.  Fall is coming but there is still a lot of time to enjoy the summer weather.  Farmers markets are great way to enjoy some time out doors, buy local produce and visit with your neighbors.

We are participating in four farmers markets this year, and are having a wonderful time at all of them.  On Tuesdays we are at the Munising Farmers Market from 5-7pm; on Wednesdays we are at the Jackson Mine Market in Negaunee from 5-7pm; on Thursdays we are at the Gwinn Farmers Market from 5-7pm; and on Saturday mornings we are at the Marquette Farmers Market from 9am-2pm.  If you live near any of those markets and haven’t made it out, or haven’t recently, it’s a great time of year to do it.

Peter

Spelt [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt] is an ancient grain that is a  relative of modern wheat.  Many people that have sensitivities to wheat find that they can eat spelt without any of the problems they associate with wheat.

We have been quietly baking small batches of 100% whole spelt bread every Thursday for a while now and it’s been a bit of challenge since the doughs are extremely extensible and delicate.  I am finally happy with the results to add it permanently to the bake schedule.  Our Whole Spelt bread contains 100% whole spelt flour, water, salt and yeast — nothing more is needed.  We mix it at the top of the morning when the mixer is clean, and clean the tables before dividing and shaping it to keep it free of contaminates.  It tastes great! — much better than a 100% whole wheat bread.

We are baking Whole Spelt Bread every Thursday and it should be available around 11:30am.

Peter