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Shalom friends,
For the past 3 Saturdays, we have been enjoying a new family venture. Due to my physical limitations and my husband’s disabilities, it takes all of us working together to pull this off. It’s hard work, but it’s a wonderful, fun, exhausting challenge… to bake on a large scale to sell at the weekly Tailgate Market.
When we were praying about participating as a vendor, we looked at all the other vendors to see if we could offer something DIFFERENT and UNIQUE. You see, my gift is baking whole-grain breads, milling my grains myself and using organic and real food ingredients. But, there were other bakers there, several in fact. I didn’t want to compete with them, but to offer something they didn’t. So, I saw what they were offering and came up with different items to offer.
Even though I have catered before and I have run a business preparing breads and pastas, all the food was by order and by set numbers and nothing on a huge scale and nothing with the unknown factor of what would sell and what would not.
And how to make this work when I deal with pain and weakness and no stamina was a big question. This requires long hours on my feet and a great deal of physical energy. How could I do it with my limitations? This was something we would have to find out. We prayed and felt G-d wanted us to try this.
Try it we did! And what a fabulous experience! The people were great and it was a joyous time. So, this was a learning proposition for all of us.
The first week, I guess you could say we flew by the seat of our pants. We did not know what to expect, or how to prepare. I just made some of my regular bread items, bagged them up and tested the response. In addition, Tim and I took along our stone mill and milled fresh whole wheat flour right there to sell! The mill drew plenty of attention, and when they came in, I had samples of my breads to taste. We were a hit!
The next week, I wanted to vary the menu a bit, to keep things fresh, so I changed some of the items and added new flavors of others. And this week, I was more organized in my preparations as I knew a bit of what to expect. Again, we did well. I noticed some items were steady sellers and others were more impulse buys.
We noticed that families were attending, most with children and dogs in tow. Tim suggested that we make natural doggie treats. What a great idea!! So, I combined several real food doggie cookie recipes and tried them out on our sweet doggie. Our Chloe LOVED our recipe. So, the doggied cookies were added to the menu, and we made extra to give out as free samples. (Some dogs like different tastes.)
This past week, I streamlined my preparation:
We sell on Saturdays, so everything needs to be baked and bagged and the car loaded by bedtime Friday night.
Thursdays:
Grind wheat
Make 2 double batches of bagels (2 different flavors – this week it’s honey whole wheat and cinnamon raisin)
Shape bagels and place in the fridge to proof overnight (at least 12 hours)
Fridays:
Grind wheat
Preheat oven to 500 degrees
Place malt water on to boil
Boil and bake off bagels
**I learned this last week: DO NOT remove the bagels from the fridge more than one pan at a time or they will overproof** Boil them cold and keep them covered until boiling.
In the Bosch, make dough for 8 pizza crusts (this week it’s tomato, basil and garlic)
When the bagels are finished, bake off the crusts.
In the Kitchen Aid, start 4 loaves’ worth of Black Bean and Salsa bread.
In the Bosch, start a 7-loaf batch of bread (1 of 2 batches).
Bag up the cooled bagels to make room for the other baked goods on the cooling racks.
Bake off 10-12 loaves of bread
Bake off 4 loaves of Black bean bread
Make 30 cinnamon buns with some of the dough from the loaf bread
Bake off the cinnamon buns
As the items cool, bag them and free up the cooling racks.
This week I am making Doggie Cookies as well, but they’ll be last.
Clean up and serve supper (tonight it’s leftover homemade pizza). Hubby will steam the kitchen and baking center floors for me (I am SO messy in the kitchen! And he does ALL the dishes!!!!)
Bag up and load car.
Saturday morning, it’s off to the market by 815 AM.
**Another thing I learned; ONLY make items my family will eat so that anything not sold will not go to waste, our family will use it** This is very important in cost/profit evaluation.
About Vickilynn Parnes
