Making Bread for the Masses

Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #186 [vol5, 9.2]

disclaimer: I’m learning as I go. I have zero technical training for a commercial kitchen. All advice is welcome. I love to feed people nourishing food. Boy howdy, feeding the masses is a whole new rodeo.

Motivated to bring better nutrition to my church’s Wednesday night supper, I’ve set off to make brioche buns for the masses. Eventually I would love to make whole grain sourdough but I’ve not yet mastered it for my own kitchen, let alone for 150 people.

Brioche is bolstered with eggs, milk and butter. I use this no-knead super easy recipe that I’ve made countless times at home. To my great delight it easily scales. We make x5 batches in three containers the day before baking, it rises in the fridge. Everything is weighed on a digital scale for efficiency and accuracy.

I wish I had more pictures. Never one to wait for perfection, I’m plowing ahead here, capturing details in the event you wanted to make this much bread for your closest friends. «ha!»

testing day: butter between layers was a happy accident

Pictured below is one batch (which is a tub of x5 of the original recipe for 50 rolls). After weighing the batch of dough it was divided into half for two layers. Wanting sandwich rolls that didn’t require cutting I settled with melted butter between layers. By accident I discovered this trick and it works beautifully. Lisa is basting the bottom layer with melted butter.

It’s hard to see in the picture but we devised a very scientific method to measure/cut the dough «sarcasm». The goal was 50 rolls from each batch of dough so we aimed for 5 columns and 10 rows, cut with a pizza cutter.

There are tick marks on the parchment paper. Turns out the dough in the center of the rectangle was thicker than edges (we weighed individual rolls bc I was aiming for 100g per roll). I need to work on my rolling skills.

Below is the first batch out of the oven.

Words fail to express the extreme weight lifted when this batch came out of the commercial oven. Notice how the rolls in the middle column invite you to pull them apart? Eeeek! Two layers with butter in the middle!

I practiced on this recipe in various ways for weeks. The homeschool crowd on Tuesday were recipients a couple of times. The first time I walked into the gym with a pan of rolls I felt like a diver in one of those cages on Shark Week.

Oh there have been mishaps. Of particular note, the first time I scaled to x5 the yeast was dead and never bloomed. I’d used it just the week before. «slight panic» Called a baker friend who has an in-home biz and we brainstormed back and forth…until I went to Kroger first thing the next morning and bought fresh yeast.

yeast sort of looked alive but was it? Bowl in middle was 8 cups

Baking on this scale and in a commercial oven is no joke. So many variables and all the things that could (and do!) go wrong. I’ve called/texted/emailed and consulted with no less than 10 people who love to cook or bake. It’s been a thrilling project!!

At home I bake at 400* convection for about 15 minutes but at church the perfect numbers are 360* for 5 minutes, then rotate pans, bake 5 minutes more.

After rolling, cutting, baking three batches, I looked over to see the above trays of buns and wanted to cry with extreme joy…but there was a salad bar to assemble. I snapped a quick picture to help savor the moment again later.

Pictured above is what we served last night: pulled pork, homemade BBQ sauce and Pioneer Woman’s mac ‘n cheese (real cheddar with an egg makes silky sauce). Not pictured is a simple salad bar with homemade ranch and bowls of Sugar Baby watermelon.

Life is hard; food doesn’t have to be.

Julie