Inspirations, ideas, and tweaks

pain au lait dough on the scale ready to be portioned by weight

Well, it has been a very nice Christmas week so far.  I love the end of the year.  I love the mental reset that comes with it.  I love that the world slows down a bit.  During this week, I've been keeping things slow as well, or trying to.  I like to keep a list of ideas, inspirations that come to me for different recipes I work with, for little tweaks or improvements, changes in an appearance, adding an ingredient, things like that.  Then when I have a week with very little going on, I like to experiment using that list.  I've made multiple batches of a few different foods from this list over the past couple weeks, but none have occupied my efforts so much as pain au lait, or milk bread as it would be in English.  This is a simple unassuming little bread, just a little sweet and soft, and perfect for an afternoon snack.  People make it in various sizes and styles, and it's not that difficult to make.  However, I've been playing with my recipe trying to get some specific changes worked out.

I had this idea for a change to the texture and also have been considering various shapes and sizes of these small loaves.  So I've been playing around with the dough, tweaking the ingredient measurements, tweaking the cooking temperature, changing egg and cream washes, amount of rise, etc.   As of the time of this blog post, over the past week I've made about 15 batches.  The squirrels and birds have really enjoyed each batch as I've tossed leftovers out in the yard for them.

pain au lait shaped in mini torpedo loaves and ready for another rise 

So far, all I can tell is that I am getting incrementally closer, emphasis on incrementally.  I start to get the shape I want, but then I have to change the oven temperature settings.  I get the time in the oven right, but then I don't get the amount of browning that I want.  And so it goes.....

pain au lait mini torpredo loaves cut, sugar topped and ready for the oven

I figure at the rate I'm going, I might get the result I'm looking for after only another couple dozen batches.  Actually, to be honest, I'm hoping that I'm much closer than that.  But I have to admit it is sometimes a frustrating process in trying to get something just right.  That's why it's so important to make notes on every change attempted so that I can go back and review, and not duplicate something I didn't like before, etc.  There is nothing really wrong with the recipe as it originally stands, and everyone likes this particular bread, but I wanted something just a bit different about it.  Working with breads always has it's challenges, it is said.

Well, I have another batch ready to go into the oven.  Maybe today is the day....!