Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Welcome!

Welcome to Rose's Alpha Bakers!

Starting very soon, a group of dedicated bakers hosted by yours truly will begin working our way through Rose Levy Beranbaum's latest, most complete, and perhaps most beautiful book of her career:  THE BAKING BIBLE.  

We call ourselves the Alpha Bakers because over half of us were Rose's "Beta Bakers," testing the recipes that Rose and Woody had already worked on tirelessly to make sure there were no instructions the ordinary baker couldn't understand and to see whether the home baker could duplicate the results Rose and Woody achieved in their test kitchen.

Now we're beginning:  starting a baking voyage through over 100 recipes for baked delights (plus a few recipes for preserves thrown in for good measure.) I've baked over a dozen of these recipes so far, and I already have over a dozen favorites!  I hope you'll be inspired by the Alpha Bakers to try your hand at some of these recipes and that you'll enjoy watching us bake our way through Rose's fabulous book.

The first project will be the pastry pictured on the cover of The Baking Bible:  the wonderful Kouign Amann.  We post on Mondays, and the first postings - pictures and commentary on the Kouign herself - will be on Monday, December 1, and each Monday thereafter, until we've baked our way through the entire book.

I will try to post a baking schedule about a month in advance, with reminders about what you might need for a particular recipe.  For example, for the Kouign Amanns, it's nice to have metal pastry rings, such as you'd use for making English muffins, but you can improvise with aluminum foil.

Most, but not all, of our bakers are from the United States, and I will take traditional American holidays like Thanksgiving or Independence Day into account, but I won't know about other traditions.  If you would like me to schedule something that would be appropriate for an occasion I might not know about or know what recipe would be appropriate, I'd love to have suggestions!

There are 100 or so recipes in the book (depending on how you count) as well as at least 20 variations.  I plan to work some Catch-up Days into the schedule, so there will be a chance for anyone who missed a week to make up for it.  Other possibilities for Catch-Up Week are to do one of the variations, or simply to take a break.  These are fun weeks, with a lot of variety.

We will not include the recipes.  I understand that this may be a disappointment to some of you who like to try recipes before you commit to buying a book.  The publisher has made some recipes available publicly, though, and you can find these through a simple google search.  Another alternative for a test drive is to get The Baking Bible from your library and bake a few recipes to see if they're to your taste.  Personally, I find this gorgeous book to be priced so reasonably that some would say it's a steal.

Any questions, just ask.

Marie

38 comments:

  1. It's great to be back Marie. Thanks for hosting the group again. I know we have some fun times ahead of us.

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  2. Looking forward to it, Marie. The oven engine is revving already :o)

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  5. Here we go.. back on the roller coaster - I have a bigger sink and kitchen this time around!

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  6. Thanks for hosting, Marie; your weekly summaries are my favorite part of the bake along. Oh, what fun we'll have!!!

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  7. ב''ה

    Revving up old toasty (2.0)

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  8. I always think of Old Sparky when you talk about Old Toasty, which is so unfair because Old Toasty was/is so good and benign.

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  9. Off in search of metal rings to add to my already humongous batteries de cuisine! Glad to see everyone��

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  10. ב''ה

    I just looked up 'Old Sparky'. Ahem, I shall find a new name for it. 'The Kafka Machine' perhaps (a la 'In the Penal Colony')...

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  11. ב''ה

    BTW I don't think your side link to 'Greenstein's Bakery' is working...

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  12. I'm happy to rejoin some of the old gang from the Heavenly Cake Bakers!!

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    1. ב''ה

      Glad to have you back Pat! You always inspire.

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    2. Thanks Mendy - it was nice seeing so many familiar names back for this bake-a-long. Looking forward to pics of your little ones helping and eating your baked goods again.

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  14. Can't wait to get started! Thanks, Marie for letting me be a part of this.

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  15. Hi Marie,

    I'd love to join this bake-along. What do I need to do?

    Thanks,

    Casper

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  16. Marie, beautiful blog! I see we are starting with a bang for our first recipe. My book is on the way. I'm really looking forward to bake-a-long with the old gang as well as making new friends, :).

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  18. Honored to join the Alpha Bakers! Looking forward to tackling the beautiful new recipes in The Baking Bible.

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  19. Soo excited to get back into the kitchen with you all and this time I have a dishwasher, hooray! I've missed our virtual group. Excited to tackle to Kougin Amann again; I still remember how delicious it was!

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  20. Hi all,
    Just wanted to share that I found 4 x 3/4 inch Mafter rings to use for the Kouigns Amanns at FSW online for only $4.

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  21. Matthew - Your cake looks just audacious! Can't wait to make it - and enjoy it. What a great idea the tea��

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  22. I would be interested in joining your group but I've never done anything like this before, how would I get started? How exciting this would be, I love to bake!!!

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  23. Hi! Are you accepting new members into this group? If you are, I'd love to join. Will bakers be required to bake each week, or will it be like the Heavenly Bakers where people could do two a month?

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  24. Hi Marie, I would love to join the bake along/ group too. I have emailed my blog details etc to you. I adore baking and I'm friends with the lovely Peggy Pegs, it would mean so much to me to join up with a such a fabulous group of bakers baking from the pages of The Baking Bible. :)

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  25. Hi! Only today I've learned about your "bake along" from Lois. Is there any chance that I can still join in? Promise to be ready for 1st December with the Kouigns Amann :D

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  26. To all who have asked about joining--I'm so sorry, but the group is filled. Please keep checking in!

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  27. I think I will jsut follow along and bake as I can.... will be out of the country til Dec. 3rd.

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  28. hello everyone you also can use the 4 inch wide by 1 inch high they work fine too.

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  29. hi Michelle this is Maggie I could not find a spot where is just click to put a comment anywhere your pastry is I looked everywhere and I still can't find it but I did leave a comment or two in the first page of the baking Bible bake a long I am terribly sorry about that.

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  30. I have been trying to post the following comment on the SweetBites blog but I keep getting a message from Safari that it can't open the page so I'm posting it here:

    Monica, I just posted a quote from this entry on my blog. So glad you revisited this--the results are awesome.

    Woody and I are curious why you decided to use the tins and since any leaking butter would get absorbed back into the dough was it overly buttery at the bottom (probably a contradiction in terms huh?!)? The tins did indeed give them a lovely shape. What were the exact dimensions of the tins?

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    1. Hello Marie I still look at your post once in a while and I still like the way yours came out and I think I know why because you use bread flour I didn't I used bleached flour .
      I think it's because of that any ways I thought I'd let you know that.

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