This is it – we are in the final run up to our big Festival, and there is now only one week left if you fancy getting a Gift Voucher as a Christmas present.
And what a good present a voucher makes for a person who you know enjoys cooking and home baking.
PANARY Gift Vouchers
Vouchers are entirely flexible:
- the recipient can decide on the actual course to attend
- a voucher for the standard one-day course also stands as a deposit on a two- or three-day course
- you create the gift on PANARY website, and payment is by PayPal – all on one simple page
- with minimum amount set at £80 you can give as much as you feel you can afford – if you give less than a one-day course fee, then the amount you have given stands as a deposit on any course chosen
- secrecy can be maintained if you request it
- they are valid for one year from the date of issue
- they are modern and suitable for this age of leisure activities
To see for yourself, visit the PANARY gift vouchers page.
My vouchers are printed on PANARY letter-headed stationery, and sent out in a photograher’s stiff-backed envelope so they arrive in perfect condition. All your sending instructions are carefully followed.
PANARY in PROVENCE
For 2015, two places remain on each: the second spring course, May 4 – 9, and the autumn course, October 12 – 17.
For spring,2016, the date is now set: May 2 – 7.
Visit the PANARY in Provence page for more information.
Bakers’ Topic – Viewing Fermentation Bubbles
Have you ever thought how inadequate it is that most recipes and instructions for bakers are always talking about time, clock time? It will double in two hours; after one hour, give it a fold; it will take another half-hour in final proof; and so on.
You will know enough about fermentation to know what is wrong here. You know that fermentation progresses according to the amount of yeast employed, and the temperature at which it is set to work. Hence a statement of time is just an estimate. The time statement would be entirely sound if the recipe said something like this (but they rarely do): with 2% yeast, at 24 degrees C, the dough will take two hours to mature.
Given the vagaries of yeast amount, temperature, and time, I suggest to students that they should move away from time estimates and teach themselves about dough maturity (and readiness) by learning to read the signs on the dough itself. How bubbly, pitted, or deteriorated is its surface? [See this newsletter’s picture, above] What is the exact size of the gas bubbles when you look sideways at the dough mass as it is puffing upwards? How are the side bubbles clustering? Here’s a tip: Whether it is a poolish, or a finished dough, you must ferment in see-through plastic tubs to be able to see the bubbles clearly.
Now you can change your approach, forget about being a slave of clock time, and be correctly guided by the appearance of the dough: O look, it is ready for its fold now, there are those gorgeous little bubbles the size of match heads embedded in its sides. Or, look at the fine array of tiny pin-head bubbles in the sides of that poolish, it will be ready in another hour or two. Or, see those bubbles as big as carpet tacks – that sponge is ready to use now.
Conclusion: ask Santa for some clear plastic proving tubs.
Happy baking, Panarians, and happy Christmas too!
Paul
