About Artisan Bread Made Easy with Rick Adams
How It Started.….
In May 2011, I opened an organic food store in Ligonier Pa.
During the first 6 months we offered many types of breads, including Mediterra Bakehouse and Friendship Farms bread. Even though these were great products, the shelf life was only 2 days.
We tried freezing to sell, both options were not economical or ideal. There is nothing attractive or sexy about frozen bread, especially when
it thaws or reheats and the crust falls off like an oyster shell.
I began to think "this can’t be that difficult". We had a certified kitchen and licensed to package due to grinding fresh nut butters and having a bulk food section.
So I took a simple white bread recipe and some baking supplies from the dollar general and began experimenting.
After several days of experimenting with different flour mixtures and textures, and a lot of mediocre and inedible (haha) loaves, the basic mixture was made! The key ingredient...Raw Wheat Germ!
The adventure began, playing with endless flavors.
Samples were offered to the customers daily, hoping for positive feedback.
Eventually my top flavors were established.
Plain
Pineapple upside down
Apple Cinnamon Brown Sugar
Cranberry Golden Raisin
Deli Rye
Blueberry pineapple coconut
Multi seed
Jalapeños Cheddar
All of my bread was mixed by hand, (no mixer required), in a blue dollar general blue bowl. No matter what flavor was added, fruit,berries, dried fruit, the base recipe stayed the same.
Each batch made 3 loaves of bread.
All ingredients readily available.
Nothing commercial.
My certified kitchen had 6 penny saver ovens in avocado green, golden harvest and contact papered wooden cabinets.
2 freestanding stoves and 2 double walled ovens. 12 loaves baking capability, 2 loaves on a cookie sheet, 1 sheet per oven.
I started vending at the Ligonier Country Market on Saturday mornings. Mixing 33-35 batches of dough Friday I baked all night long and straight to the market on Saturday morning, selling out of 100 loaves in 3 hours.
Prior to closing the organic retail store, I was baking, packaging and selling to the Giant Eagle in Ligonier.
The East End Food Co-op wanted deliveries 6 days a week by 6 am.
The Retail store closed.
Very quickly, a friend of mine said to me, " I believe in your bread, let me invest in a bakery". My reply was "thank you but No......it's not a recipe to dump into a mixer, bake, package and deliver economically for a dollar or $2.
So Back to Corporate America 🇺🇸 😊
Some time passes by and a former customer stopped me on the street and said," I miss the store but I really miss your bread". My response was "It's so easy, I could teach you".
A couple days later, she called and stated she had a group of friends that would love to learn!
And so it began … The first,
“Artisan Bread Made Easy" class was born with Rick Adams.
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