Re: Zest Bakery in San

[Guest guest]

There have been a number of great conversations on this site as well as the Bay Area R.O.C.K. group. Many of the people that monitor this site also monitor R.O.C.K.'s, but for those who don't, Sheryl Davies has a very interesting post about Zest on her blog. If you haven't read it, here it is: http://www.breakingbreadblog.com/ . Zest is no longer at the top, so search down a bit. I recognize Zest's challenge as someone who has worked for some time trying to bake interesting and good tasting GF bread. There are way more failures than successes, and even the most reliable breads have a way of becoming obstinate sometimes. Although as consumers we pay the bill, in this case maybe we should cut the Zest bakery a bit of slack while they debug their processes. Baking for yourself and perhaps a few friends is likely to be way different than baking for the public.I haven't been to Zest yet, and I will be doing that in the near future. However, like a number of you, I have been to Europe, and I consider Europe to be the epicenter of GF baking because they became gluten aware before America did and have been doing something about it for a lot longer. Buying pretty high quality GF baked goods in Western Europe is extremely easy. So, here is my spin on questions and comments that I have seen here and on R.O.C.K.Baguettes are pretty tasteless - Yes, I agree.The GF baguettes in Barcelona were good to eat with lunch or dinner, but mostly they were vapid and a good foil for butter - lots of it. (http://home.comcast.net/~vhdolcourt/CD ) When I could still eat bread - or at least thought I could - the best bakery I found was Patisserie in Montpellier, France. Their baguettes were totally tasteless, so I bought other and more interesting bread. Bottom line - the only GF baguettes I make any more have very fruity olives baked inside (get them from Piazza's in Palo Alto).Zest's baguettes are kind of flat - Unfortunately, mine are too sometimes. GF bread dough has little strength and tends to flatten. The best GF baguettes are made in pans like half pipes. Also it's best to cut back on the water, and then the dough has more strength. But that reduces the ability for the yeast to raise. That is probably why the Spanish yeast bread also contains baking powder.Notice that the Spanish baguettes are brown-and-serve. They are also packed in nitrogen because GF breads have very poor keeping abilities.That's my spin. You are free to disagree.Cheers!Vic