Bringing Back Homemade

Monday, May 26, 2008

It has been oven fifteen years since I came up with the idea that a home bakery produces the best and tastiest baked goods. Years ago there were many women who could bake an excellent apple pie, or heavenly pound cake. Today most women are too busy to bake anything, and the few that do have a smidgen of time are to busy to bake anything. The idea that there are no real bakers around to bake and even fewer real down home bakeries got me thinking; a paradigm shift needs to occur now, right now. We need bakers, really great bakers, not folks who are going to prepare those God awful pastries sold at Panera and Au Bon Pain. I mean good old fashioned pastry, the sort that goes stale tomorrow and must be used in bread pudding because they are no longer good for anything else.

What would it take to get people baking again? Food prices are skyrocketing. Gas prices are just sinful. Bosses aren’t hiring and people are stressed and frustrated. Yeap, it’s time to bake. Baking relieves stress, baking gives a persona a sense of accomplishment and baking feeds the body and the soul. Several weeks ago I went right to work designing a course that would teach the home baker how to start a little baking business.

The course I created is titled, How to operate a successful home-based bakery. I currently have seven participants and we are having a blast. I have no doubt that a few have cold feet, but all see the potential in baking from home and selling their goods to the public. People are hungry for good down-home baked goods. I venture to say many of us don’t even remember what a cake from scratch taste like anymore.

It’s no secret small home-based businesses have been surviving and even thriving since the beginning of time. How many remember Tupperware? Anyone remember Watkins products that were sold door to door? Today there have been many changes that have occurred around how information is used and disseminated and the advancement in telecommunication technologies has both helped and hindered micro-businesses. The new technologies now make it possible for producers and consumers to connect in a more timely and efficient manner. This is a key element for the micro-business owner operating out of his/her home. Business owners can now contact customers at the click of a mouse and promote their products and services via the Web and email adverting.

The forms of advertising now available are both inexpensive and expensive depending on if you want the bells, whistles and search engine optimization and keyword analysis. Home-based business owners now have access to market research to enhance business success. Micro-owners can investigate how competing businesses are positioning their products and capturing customers in multiple markets. The economic field is expanding and that means home-based business owners must narrow their niche market and target customers outside their traditional market areas. No matter what the product, you still must offer impeccable service, a quality product and the right price; this fact is true whether you are Benny’s Home-Baked Breads or Au Bon Pain.

The manner by which we eat baked goods is going to change. My prediction is we are heading toward the way of the European. The portions of food will get smaller and smaller, but with that the quality will go higher and higher. This will not be known for several years, but life in America is changing and it is changing at neck snapping speeds. If you are fortunately enough to live in a rural area, where the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will inspect your kitchen and allow you to operate a home-based bakery, go for it. Bakers take heed however, you will need to research the market and make sure there is a need for your services; test the waters so you don’t drown.

If the prospects look promising research what it would take to run a micro-bakery in your home. You may want to operate it on the weekends, selling at your local farmer’s market or at a local farmer’s vegetable and fruit stand. Consider contacting some of the local restaurants or coffee shops and see if they would be interested in carrying your products. Talk to the Department of Agriculture or Food Safety about any kitchen inspections, licenses, and the liability insurance you will need; better safe than sorry. You may also want to supply your products to another bakery, i.e. miniature pastry shells that can be filled with lemon curd, pecan pie filling, or minced apples and cinnamon. Don’t jump in with both feet, give this some thought and let’s read about your home-based bakery in the next issue of Southern Living.

Clinton Louisiana Tea Cookies

Makes about 8 dozen small cookies

This is a simple little recipe I named after my grandmother’s home town.

3 cups sugar

2 cups shortening (i.e. Crisco)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract*

½ teaspoon maple flavor

4 eggs

5 ½ cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons cream of tartar

2 teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup almonds, finely chopped (substitute pecans)

powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F

1. Beat sugar, shortening and vanilla and maple flavor with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until the mixture is smooth.
2. Stir flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add nuts. Stir into shortening mixture until well blended.
3. Shape dough into walnut-size balls. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until lightly brown around edged.
4. Cook 2 hours on wire rakes. Dust cookies with powdered sugar.

Stocking Up

Monday, May 19, 2008

In 1982 I was returning from Okinawa, Japan after serving in the United States Navy and on the way to Detroit decided to stop in Oakland California to visit my daughter's Great Aunt Edith. Great Aunt Edith was a true victory gardener, a southern-belle, gracious, kind, with a heart of gold. I admired her self-preservation skills and her ability to give knowledge and wisdom so effortlessly.

I received from my daughter's great-aunt one of the best gifts, I had probably ever received in my young life. It was a little red book titled Stocking Up, by the staff of Organic Gardening and Farming copyrighted 1977. The book introduced me to food preservation and why it is not only important but essential.

You see when I first went into Aunt Edith's apartment, I knew this woman was a survivalist of sorts since she was just starting the seedlings for her garden. This was someone I could learn from and someone willing to teach; and although we were only there for a brief time, she left a lasting impression.

What did I gain from my encounter with great-aunt Edith?

1. You don't have to have a back yard to garden

2. Fruit trees are essential, even if they are growing in a gigantic pot on the patio.

3. Everyone should know how to garden and can (preserve) food

4. It's good to be frugal

5. Understanding numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 will help you survive lean times.

I come from a long line of gardeners, my mother, grandmothers and great-grandmothers. These were southern women who could make a dollar out of a dime and a delicious pie out of vinegar or buttermilk. Today I cannot stress enough the need to grow your own, even if it is just green onions and lettuce. It is the wise homemaker (male or female) who can "put up" fruits, vegetables, jams and pickles for a rainy day.

This may sound simplistic, and folks cannot survive on canned fruits and vegetables alone, but ever dime saved by canning and baking from scratch can be spent towards meat, fish and fowl. Every little bit helps and that is no exaggeration.

When was the last time you were at a Farmer's Market? When was the last time you stopped by a road side stand to pick up strawberries or peaches? I can honestly tell you there is nothing better than buying fresh and preserving fresh fruits and vegetables. I am aware that everyone lives busy lives but with food cost skyrocketing, floods destroying American soil and gas prices going through the roof we must "think smart" and pay attention to how we spend our nickels and dimes since money really can disappear like snow in a furnace.

This fall I will be introducing a series of classes to the folks living in the Raleigh/Durham area. I will teach canning and how to make homemade bread. There was a time when the most inexpensive food you could purchase was a loaf of bread. Today "good" bread can cost you upwards of $3 to $5 dollars or more depending on where you live. Good whole wheat bread is a wonderful source of fiber and the perfect accompaniment to any meal.

Why learn these skills? Why not? Learning to preserve, and learning to bake is like learning to ride a bicycle, once you know how, you never forget. Canning and baking are two survival skills ever human, young or old should have. Years ago, little girls learned to canned at the hip of their mother or grandmother. Now, we rely on pre-prepared foods loaded with sodium, additives and preservatives. Ages ago, bakers made their own bread, because they did not have the five cents or twenty-five cents to purchase a loaf. Today all the loaves are pre-sliced and filled with all sorts of things I'd rather not list.

If you think you cannot bake, or you think you do not have time to can, please reconsider. These are skills you can teach your children or grandchildren. This is an activity that can become a late summer, early fall family affair.

Learn more about the Canning and Baking classes in the Raleigh/Durham area this fall by visiting www.cookingwithdenay.com

You Live What You Learn

Monday, May 12, 2008

Recently I corresponded with Dr. LuAnn Soliah of Baylor University about an article she wrote some years ago with a colleague titled “Current Home Baking Practices.” I believe the article was written in 2004. Well, to make a long story short the paper concluded that we just don’t bake the way we use to and our fast paced lives have lead parents and children down a dangerous path. Parents manage to provide food for their children and teenagers; however they don’t teach them about food preparation and nutrition which is now being referred to by Quist, J., Toth, K.S. and Green, K. (1998) as “shopping, cooking and eating” viewing the knowledge associated with nutrition as nothing more than common daily acts. What is the world coming to?

According to Dr. LuAnn Soliah “parents need to recognize that home food preparation is a teaching opportunity as well as a parental responsibility;” and we all know that parents are a child’s first teacher, right? Where do we begin? We can first start by learning how to cook, bake, can and preserve healthy foods ourselves. This may sound simple, but you would be surprised the number of adults who do not know how to do anything more than open a can or microwave a frozen dinner. I am by no means an alarmist but to put all of your faith in large food conglomerates who are in business to make money and not really supply healthy nutritious food is just plain foolish.

I am a cooking instructor. I teach folks how to cook, how to build sustainable home food processing systems that put control over food selection and preparation back into the hands of those who should have it. Everyone lives busy lives, and has work, school, family and community responsibilities, but having direct control of what you eat and how it is prepared is going to be paramount in the coming years. We are all doing more with less, and that includes attempting to feed the masses. When the population increases and people are forced to work longer hours, for less pay, with less training and this is happening; even the Center for Disease Control has admitted that foodborne infections are on the rise and changing.

In approximately two weeks I will be teaching a Micro business course titled "How to operate a successful home-based bakery." Fortunately I live in a state that allows folks to operate home-based bakeries. This is not as unusual as you might think. In some third world countries, there are village or town bakers who own and operate large hearths; this baker is responsible for baking the bread brought to him by the villagers. Each loaf is marked to indicate ownership and the villager drops off their loaf/loaves and returns in a few hours to retrieve it, baked and ready for consumption. How cool is that?

There is nothing more basic than baking, whether it is bread, cake, pie or cookies; the art of baking has been around since the beginning of time, but it is an art we must preserve, cultivate and pass on to future generations. There are children who have never tasted homemade bread or cookies. Would you believe there are adults who have never eaten a homemade cake because their mother only used Duncan Hines boxed cake mix? I once had a young women tell me, “Why would I ever bake a cake from scratch when I can just buy a box of mix for a couple dollars?”

I neglected to tell her, because she could avoid consuming:
Sugar, enriched bleached wheat flour (flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine moninitrate, riboflavin, folic acid). Vegetable oil shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, propylene glycol mono-and diesters of fats, mono-AND diglcerides, leavening (sodium bi-carbonate, dicalcium phosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate), dextrose, wheat startch, contains 2% or less of salt, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids maltodextrin, natural and artificial flavors, gum Arabic, partially hydrogentated soybean oil, cellulose gum, citric acid, xanthan gum, colored with (yellow 5 lake) Contains: wheat

I just think it’s easier to say the cake was made with flour, eggs, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar, cornstarch, butter (cream), milk, vanilla bean and sugar or honey.

Look, I’m no purist. I occasionally purchase store bought pie shells and mayo off the shelf; but I do know how to make a pie shell from scratch and mayo using fresh egg yolks, canola oil, vinegar, salt, and a little dry mustard. I’m just saying before you through the baby out with the bath water, at least teach the little tike to swim. Our children will grow up to be young adults and how they function, live and take care of their own families will be a direct reflection of what we do or do not teach them. They don’t learn through osmosis so the next time your child says “What are we having for dinner”? Say, come here, let’s fix dinner together tonight. They may or may not like it now, but they will truly thank you in about ten years.

Below is my favorite morning bread. It is moist, flavorful and great with that first cup of java. I have cut out the egg yolk and reduced the sugar, however if you use ripe fresh fruit you won’t even miss it. This is definitely one of those loaves you could take to work and know that inside of 10 minutes there would be nothing left but crumbs. Enjoy!

Morning Bread
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

INGREDIENTS

• ¼ cup canola oil
  
• 1 egg white
  
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
  
• ¼ teaspoon salt
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1 cup apple, chopped
  
• ½ cup walnuts, chopped
  
• ½ cup cranraisins or raisins
  
• 3 ½ tablespoons sugar
  
• 1 cup flour
  
• 1 cup ripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
  * super ripe bananas are perfect for this bread
  
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
  
  INSTRUCTIONS
  

1. Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nuts and cranraisins, set aside
   
2. In a medium bowl, mix oil, egg white, sugar, stir to blend
   
3. Add to the oil/egg mixture; flour mixture, bananas, apple, and lemon juice
   Stir until just combine
   
4. Batter will be thick
   
5. Pour batter into a greased 9-inch by 4-inch loaf pan
   
6. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes
   
7. Allow to set for 15 minutes
   
8. Serve warm or at room temperature
   
9. Refrigerate any leftovers