Breadness Buzz - Souper Bowls, Love Loaves, Something in the Air...

‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

“I've never had anything mediocre from here. Everything's amazing” — S.C.

NOTE: If this is your first Breadness Buzz, or if you've been part of our tribe but missed earlier posts, visit the Breadness Buzz Archive here and catch up on this content written especially for you. It's a great way to meet like-minded artisan sourdough aficionados and be part of this journey I started back in 2016. And now for this week's Buzz...

Note from the Baker/Chef: I apologize for running out of bread last Sunday. Ran out of the frozen loaves, too. Well, we're making a bunch more bread this week so (hopefully) we will be able to exceed the demand. With Super Bowl Sunday, Valentine's Day Wednesday and perfect sourdough weather, it's gonna be BUSY. But isn't that what life's all about? Creating things that make people happy? Absolutely!

Last year we made a bunch of our Artisan Sourdough Country Loaves with a football score on top ("score" here meaning a shallow cut with a special blade, not 33-17 final score). This year, we're making our petite-size Breadness Bowls with the football top-crust. That means that you can hollow one of these out into a football-shape container to present your Chowdah or Chili or Dip to your ravenous fans! Whatever your plans, do place your orders in advance so we can set your bowls/loaves aside before we open the doors to the public. Specify in the Special Instructions box if you would like a football-top design (or our traditional circle-top score) on your loaf/loaves. We'll do our best to accommodate. These loaves are available this weekend, February 8th through the 11th!

Valentine's Day falls on a Wednesday this year, not exactly the most romantic day of the week, nor the best day for fresh bread on our current baking schedule. However, we're stocking up on our Heart-top Loaves this weekend so we can freeze them. That way, you'll be able to restore them to their natural state by letting them thaw Tuesday night; they'll be perfect for Valentine's Day breakfast! And another first, most of our Cinnamon Raisin Maple Pecan sourdough loaves this week have the special Heart-top score. French Toast, anyone?

Of course, you can always change your Valentine's Day festivities to another day or night. Either way, you can keep your loaves "on ice" until a few hours before the planned meal, then savor them in the days that follow.

GERTRUDE THE BREADNESS GOOSE IN HER VALENTINE'S DAY ENSEMBLE. BAKERY INTERIOR STYLING BY ELIZABETH.

Order your Valentine's Day Heart-top Country Loaves here and specify you'd like a heart-top loaf in the special instructions box. We'll do our best to accommodate. And while you're at it, add one or more of our exceptional butters, jams, honeys, tapenades, olive oils or balsamic vinegars to the experience.

Sourdough breadmaking is an interesting subject that seems to have no end to the amount of things one can learn about this endeavor. Recently I thought about the one ingredient never mentioned in sourdough bread recipes, yet its absence would have made the entire subject nonexistent! And this ingredient plays 2 vital roles in the formation of all breads. The secret ingredient? AIR. We don't think about air because we can't see it. And we can't see all the microscopic organisms in the air without an electron microscope. But without air and the wild yeasts and bacteria that circulate in the air over most parts of the world, there would be no flour and water turning into sourdough starter. There would also be no air bubbles in the bread due to the multiplication activity of those wild yeasts and bacteria as they feed on the sugars and protein in the bread flours.

There's another factor about air that I've noticed in the past few weeks. I spend a lot of time in our bakery and with the dough-making process, there's lots of flour dust in the air. I can't see it floating around, but I see it when it settles on surfaces throughout the bakery or is trapped in air filters on our freezer and on the roof from our heat pump. It doesn't bother me or my staff, nor most of our customers. But every now and then, someone walks in and after a minute or two, they'll start coughing. We have bottles of water handy to help the situation but I realized it was time to find a good air filtration system for our space.

You may have heard me mention the "Bread Angels" before. They seem to have been guiding me on this journey and wanted Random Acts of Breadness to become a reality. They've also injected their magic in several scenarios that resulted in making our micro-bakery that much better. Well... Last week I happened to visit Alice, a good friend, fellow musician, Breadness customer and recording studio client, when she needed some help with a computer-related problem. I drove to her place, handled the problem and noticed she had an unusual air purifier from a company called Rabbit Air. When I got home, I researched the product and was amazed at how it looked, how effective it was, and how quiet it was. Customer reviews were great. So I purchased 2 of their flagship units capable of handling over 1000 square feet of space. One unit is for the bakery, the other is for our home.

The units arrived today (Wednesday) and I wasted no time in setting up the first unit at the bakery. It's now in place and running 24/7. I'll be monitoring customers to see if there's any flour-in-the-air-induced throat irritation, or not! I'll also be looking at the flour dust settling to see if the Rabbit Air is cutting down on the free-floating flour in the air.

With every other ingredient in our breads being as organic, kosher and clean as can be, we now have added add AIR to that list!

> Artisan Sourdough Country Loaves (full-size and petite, some with heart or football tops)

> Cinnamon Raisin Maple Pecan Sourdough Loaves (full-size and petite, most with heart tops)

> Artisan Sourdough Breadness Crisps (Naked, Tuscan Herb, Applewood Smoked and Cinnamon Raisin Maple Pecan)

Order the above (and any of our other artisan products) at breadness.com/#shop. If a product is visible in the online shop, it's in stock. If you don't see a product in the online shop, it's sold out (but we might be making more, in which case the counter will be set to the available quantity).

Random Acts of Breadness is located at 2214 West Magnolia Blvd. in Burbank (2-1/2 blocks east of Buena Vista on the south side of the street). Come to the bakery and sample our artisan wares, or order on line for bakery pickup, or have Breadness delivered or shipped to your door. You may also order by phone at 818-562-7303 and pay when you come pick it up. We're open Thursday, Friday & Saturday 12 to 6 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Reminder: If you (or someone you wish to gift) live within 120 miles of Los Angeles, we can ship on Wednesday or Thursday (via UPS Ground) and in most cases your Breadness Box will arrive on Thursday or Friday. Place your order before Wednesday morning here. If you live outside of So Cal, we can now ship 2-Day Air (or Ground service) on Wednesday (unsliced bread) for Friday delivery. Join our growing list of nationwide customers who look forward to receiving their Breadness deliveries on a regular basis!

You received this email because you subscribed to our list. You can unsubscribe at any time.