First Day of Market for me...

Today was the first day that I worked the Farmer's Market this year.  I determined how many bagels to bring by looking at last year's records, but between regular customers and beautiful weather I sold out in 2 hours.  Next week I'll bring many more.

I'm looking at upgrading my home oven to speed up my baking.  I've heard many things about convection ovens, on Monday I'll be looking at all the local appliance stores to see what they have available.

Market begins...

Today was the first of 3 "pre-season" markets, before the May 2nd official opening day.  I'm unfortunately booked for the first couple pre-markets, but will be there in 2 weeks.

New flavors, upcoming Market...

Some more tinkering has lead to the creation of two flavors that will occasionally get rotated in, walnut spice and basil onion.  The rosemary onion also got approval from the taste testers, so it will be appearing in April.  

The wonderful success from last year's Lawrence Farmers Market has lead me to hope for some improvements for the baking process for this year.  This includes both replacing my home oven with a convection oven so I can bake more bagels faster, and the eventual purchase of a larger mixer (which although large at 8 quarts, is still tiny by industrial standards).  Not only are these shiny objects that make the kitchen look more impressive, but they would hopefully cut down on the time I spend in the kitchen on Friday to bring you the bagel goodness on Saturday.  

New flavor in the works...

I'm working on a new flavor, rosemary onion.  So far the taste tests have received good reviews, now it's a matter of seeing if it's better with garlic or should remain as is.

Only about a month and a half until the opening of the Lawrence Farmer's Market.

Happy New Years

Welcome to 2009! So far this year I've been waiting a couple of weeks for my KitchenAid mixer to get fixed, and started figuring out startup costs for the upcoming Farmer's Market season. The good news is that there will be much less startup cost since I purchased most physical booth supplies last year (canopy, table, etc), the irritating news is that I now know that I will need to set aside an equipment budget for 2009. It should be no surprise that making several hundred pounds of dough in 6 months will put a strain on a KitchenAid mixer, but and industrial mixer is not in my foreseeable future both money and space wise.

Opening day of the Market is I believe May 2nd, see you then.

The price of success...

On Thursday, I was doing up a test batch of Belizean Creole Bread when my mixer broke.  Considering how many hundreds of pounds of dough it's done this year (over 250 easily), it's no surprise that something broke.  The bolt that holds up the head assembly that rotates around snapped, lucky for me the bread was done kneading when it gave.  

I'll start off with the most important part, the bread.  The Belizean Creole Bread is made with coconut milk, and came out tasting sweet and delicious. It reminded me a little bit of challah with the sweetness and slightly chewy texture.  Tomorrow some slices are destined to become French Toast for breakfast.

On the part of the mixer, there is a repair place only about half an hour from me, and I'm able to pick the wife up from work so she doesn't have to take the commuter bus back.  In about 7-10 days it should be fixed, and the cost is under a third of what a new mixer costs.  I do now realize that about 10% of the sales should go into a fund to pay for future equipment upgrade and repairs, so starting after I get the mixer back the fund will start.

One other thing I learned is that there are at least 3 patron saints of bakers.  I chose Saint Elizabeth of Hungary as mine, in case I ever need one.

Holiday Market Success!

I sold the most bagels ever at the Holiday Market this past Saturday, taking 16 dozen and bringing home only 5 plain (which maybe I could have sold, but feel silly sitting at a nearly empty table with just 5 plain bagels that may or may not sell in the last 2 hours).  I got to see many of my regular customers, and several friends that wandered in from out of town.

I'll be doing special orders during the off season, and the Lawrence Farmer's Market opens up again on I believe May 2nd of 2009.