Bakery Nouveau

A little candy-action for your Friday photos. The first two are...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:52:05 -0800

A little candy-action for your Friday photos. The first two are our variation on a cherry cordial. They are a fondant-liquor cordial with a brandied cherry- potentially a bit messy to eat, but tasty.

The second type is our hazelnut praline. The top is textured as they are dual enrobed with a layer of crushed hazelnuts before the final coat. For the striping, they had to quickly pipe the dark chocolate over the milk chocolate before it set. This let the layers blend a little together, so that you have smooth striping instead of set-up stripes (most piping is done after a shell has set-up).

The last two photos are this year’s raspberry-caramel heart. Chef went with a red spray backed by white this year, as opposed to a red brush-in with or without the backing (brushing in gives a nice swirl effect). To get this effect (and for the cordials too), colored cocoa butter is held at about ~90 F and sprayed into clean molds held at about room temperature. The spray can be controlled to a smooth speckle, or a more thorough coating, since this is basically spray painting with colored cocoa butter. As we get into Easter Egg production, we’ll see other cocoa butter and coloring techniques.

Have a great Friday evening, and enjoy the weekend, everyone!

It’s getting to be that time of year again- our first...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:04:32 -0800

It’s getting to be that time of year again- our first foray into flooded heart cookies (that would be an excellent band name) is in the hot-pink and red category. Once again, we’ll be having a little fun with them- I’ve been told ‘sweetheart candy’ style sayings are on their way, and well… as the second photo shows, also a little sass (with hot pink, there has to be a little sass- it’s probably a law).

King Cake!

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:56:16 -0800

Yep, it’s definitely that time of year. We have our slices of King Cake out, and whole cakes (~12 nice servings) are available by pre-order. This year’s cake is still rooted in the colorful New Orleans’ style crown shaped cake, with the colored sugar in green, yellow and purple. The dough is braided croissant dough, with a filling of our Tatin style apple filling (i.e., baked in brown sugar and butter and then pureed) and raisins. There is also a touch of cinnamon and sugar. It’s very buttery, due to the croissant dough, and nicely sweet due to the Tatin filling. I’d probably pair it with a nice cup of coffee or a darker tea to contrast the sweetness.

Like previous years, they will only be available until Mardi Gras!

The dessert case also has a little something new- we have a smaller all-mousse dessert out this week. Chocolate mousse layered with cherry creme Madam, with candied pistachios and brandied cherries. It’s one of our smaller desserts (the same size as our chocolate pot de creme, or our creme brulee, for those familiar with them), so a good size for those that might need a chocolate and mousse fix, but might not want a full slice of chocolate cake, or chocolate mocha cheesecake.

Just a quick update for this ever-so-slightly warmer Monday. I hope everyone had a great weekend, and is having a great start to the week!

It's been a little quiet

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:46:06 -0800

January is an odd month. There’s the shutdown for cleaning, maintenance and upgrades, decompression after holiday production, the January Slowdown, and then the ‘oh my, St. Valentine’s Day is in 3 weeks!’ panic amongst those of us who work with chocolate (well, not really panic, but some holidays just suddenly loom after lurking quietly on the calendar). Occasionally, there’s a snowstorm (and awesome coverage by the West Seattle Blog).

It’s also a good month- King Cake has made it’s return, injecting some sweet, colorful goodness into those early Seattle mornings. This heralds the imminent return of Paçzki, those tasty cream or jam filled fried bread, and the closest to a doughnut you’ll find here (they aren’t back yet- they’ll only be around for the two weeks before Mardi Gras).

Overall though, it’s pretty quiet. That means it ends up a little quiet on the blogging front as well. There are a few bits of news and some thoughts to put out there though. First of all- *ahem* We need artists for Art Walk! We have a couple of artists lined up in the year, but that leaves 9 months or so that need to be filled. Paintings, photos, and mixed media work well in our space- we don’t really have display space for sculpture/3-d work, etc. Food, landscapes, still life and city life are some of the areas of interest have for display purposes (no political based art please- while we enjoy discussions and encourage everyone to be informed, we also want our space to be a nice relaxing break from the news at large). Please also note that our display space is a bit higher up on the wall, so smaller pieces might not show well. We have a gallery-style hanging system (adjustable cables and clips). So- if you are an artist or you know someone who is, drop us a line (info (at) bakerynouveau (dot) com).

Regarding snow-days- on the off-chance that we have another round of real winter down in the lowlands here, so long as there is power to the building, we’ll be able to open the doors. We have several staff that live very locally, and bread and pastry aren’t really concerned with the weather, so it has to be baked off. The first serious snow in the area after we opened pretty much proved the resiliency of West Seattleites- it’s the first time I’ve seen people on cross-country skis on city streets. So, if you live in or around the Junction (or can ski to it), we’ll be here. Someday, I hope to have a photo of a bunch of skis racked against our front window and wall.

We’re also looking at a few small upates here and there on the website. Nothing major, but some slimming down of some text and some re-arranging of a few things perhaps (basically a refreshing).

And one last small thing- questions- does anyone have any? We write about things that we find interesting, but what do you find interesting or wonder about?

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Marble counters and a new floor

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:31:04 -0800

As posted previously, if it’s the first week of a new year, we’re going to be closed a few days. We need a short break, our equipment needs to be tended to (granted, equipment needs tending more than once a year), walls need patching and painting, and everything needs a darn good scrub. Also, it’s traditionally one of the times when Chef does a major re-arrangement of tables and equipment.

This year, we did a little extra upgrading in addition to our normal maintenance. The production-area floor got a new, industrial grade top-coat. Previous years had seen some attempts at using a top coat that we installed, and, well…it worked ok, but we needed to patch and reapply on a regular basis. The industrial epoxy coat that was installed last week should hold much better against what we throw at it. The floor is now a glossy grey as opposed to the kind of patchy cream color- it also looks like it was painted with sand thrown down, because it essentially was. The sand-looking texture improves traction and reduces slipping, which is always a good thing.

What should be more immediately noticeable is in the cafe space. We had marble installed to cover or replace some pretty beat-up wood tops. We went for a classic look using Carrera marble instead of granite or a composite (our stone surfaces in production are granite). It has a honed finish instead of polished, as the glossy polished look would eventually show a lot of wear and turn matte anyway. We like the lighter color and somewhat more classic look to the stone, and marble is just such a nice, relatively easy upgrade to make.

The bulk of time for the shutdown was required for the floor- between cleaning and texturing the underlying concrete, and applying and letting the floor cure (it was a low VOC, quick cure), it took the better part of four and a half days. We then needed an extra day for ramping production back up. The marble installation went remarkably quickly, taking well under half a day (for stone, it seems the bulk of time required is for cutting and polishing to the correct finish).

For those that are interested, the marble was cut, finished and installed by Sam Clark (http://clarkstoneinstallations.com/), who is local to West Seattle and also works on home installations. The production floor was coated by Coatings Unlimited, Inc. (offices in Kent, WA, and I’m pretty sure they are industrial or commercial only).

As for the re-arranging of the production space, we have actually returned to a more linear arrangement, with several stations trading places. We also freed up a little production space by removing an under-utilized two-door cooler, and shifting a chilled table to that spot. Why all the shuffling? The basic answer is efficiency. Which mixers are being used mostly by what station, who needs to be closest to the gas range top, what needs to be closer together, or possibly farther apart, who might need to be able to work from a number of racks at a time- these and others are considerations that are being continually evaluated. The general production areas (dessert, bread, pastry, and savory) are pretty well marked out at this time, but as our team grows and our product mix adjusts to our sales, different production groups end up with modified needs. A shut down is a good time to make adjustments based on the previous several months’ production.

Since everything was taken out of production for the floor coating, it was a good time for a radical adjustment. The space flows much better now, with less congestion in some areas. We’ll have to sit on it for a few months to catch a couple of really busy cycles, but so far, it seems to be working well.

So, that’s a brief recap on what happened during our close. We’d like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding!

Annual shutdown- Jan 1st-6th

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:42:17 -0800

So, our little shop gets a bit frazzled by the end of the year, and we tend to like to close the first week of January in order to clean, make repairs or updates, and generally take stock of things heading into the new year. This year we’re closing for the 1st through the 6th.

We extended it a couple of days this year over last, as we are finally putting down an industrial strength floor-coat. Hard wearing epoxy paint just hasn’t quite been working as a solution, at least long term, and we’re starting to see some wear and tear in the concrete, so we’re are having the floor professionally prepared and resurfaced. It will be easier to clean, safer for the staff, and much more resistant to the dropped sheet pans that life in the bakery occasionally provides.

Also, we’re getting some marble accents installed. There are a few areas that have been looking a little worn, and we thought a nice update would be a bit more fun than sanding and refinishing the current wood surfaces.

So- we apologize for any inconveniences our annual shutdown will bring, but it will let us start the new year right- our staff gets a little rest, and our bakery gets some much needed TLC.

Have a great start to the New Year everyone!

Just as a reminder, we will be open regular hours today, and...

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 11:19:43 -0800

Just as a reminder, we will be open regular hours today, and from 7 am to 4 pm tomorrow. We will be closed the 25th and 26th.

Have a happy holiday everyone!

Phones work!

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:54:17 -0800

And they are back up and correct! The simple fixes are the nicest!

Phone issues

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:49:55 -0800

Our phone line is acting very strangely, with static and dial-tone overlay. We do have a technician scheduled for late this morning or early afternoon. We apologize for any inconvenience.

We’ll do our best to field questions either over twitter (@bakerynouveau) or via email, and let you know when they are back up and working properly.

As a quick FAQ-

1) We do not take orders over email, but we can answer questions about product and ordering.

2) Orders for tomorrow and Saturday are closed and our production schedule being set, so we cannot take any further orders for this week.

Thank you, and again, we apologize for any inconvenience.

Early Closing Today, 12/19

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:55:25 -0800

We’re closing early today, at 5 pm (originally was to be 6 pm), for a private anniversary event for staff, vendors and extended bakery family. We normally hold staff events off-site, but wanted to be in the shop for it this one. Thank you for your understanding.

We will be open regular hours on Tuesday.

Have a great Monday afternoon and evening everyone!

5 yrs and counting.

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0800

Writing a post to encapsulate what is considered one of the early marks to hit is a bit daunting.

As of today, December 17th, Bakery Nouveau is 5 yrs old. There are a couple of scary statistics out there about food establishments and years of existence, and while we’re aware of them, the 5 year mark snuck up on us. We’ve been busy doing what we do, working hard to make and serve products that we can be proud of. So what does one write?

Thinking about it all, the first thing we want to do is say Thank you, West Seattle. This is really a great community to be in. You continually give us the chance to show what we can do, to actually make and sell bread, pastry and dessert for a living. Everything else aside, we make food for a living. How cool is that?

We get to develop our craft and share it with our customers. While it’s not always easy, and quite often is a lot of hard work, it’s also one of the best jobs out there, and we are grateful for having this opportunity.

Secondly, but no less important, we want to thank all of our employees, past and present. We’ve been exceptionally lucky to have so many great, talented and hard working people come through our doors.

As a small thank you to everyone that comes in today, the 17th, we’re discounting in-store purchases by 10% (current production items only, with chocolates, macarons and phone orders excluded).

Again, thank you, to all our customers- we truly do appreciate that you choose to buy our products, and we look forward to many more years of being able to create and sell great food.

Thank you!

Holiday Orders

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:35:43 -0800

For those who haven’t seen it yet, our full holiday listing is up on our website now. There are two items not listed that are in-store only- the chocolate filled glass bowls of the previous blog post, and the chocolate Christmas Trees. There are a few trees left that are made from our rocher, and then the others are made using feuilltine, crispy wafer flakes. Let me tell you, it’s hard to photograph a chocolate tree and have it look right (hence, it not being pictured). However, they do look good in person, and would make a nice small centerpiece.

We’ve also recently brought out a large chocolate and hazelnut panettone. They don’t quite have the traditional tall, cylindrical look of a classic panettone, but they are created from a classic panettone dough. This means they are soft and buttery like you would expect, but have chocolate and hazelnut in lieu of dried or soaked fruit. Then again, if you want rum soaked fruit, we do have Stollen!

For those of you who know what you want, we are taking pre-orders for Christmas Eve through the Wednesday, the 21st. We’ll be closing early on the 24th, and closed both Christmas Day and the day after. We’ll be open for regular business hours on the 27th.

We’re also closing a little early this coming Monday, the 19th, for a private event. The bakery will close at 6 pm, instead of 7 pm.

So, just a short informational post for this Friday eve. Have a great evening and enjoyable weekend everyone!

Our full holiday offerings will be available soon (and yes,...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:05:20 -0800

Our full holiday offerings will be available soon (and yes, Stollen is definitely back!). In the meantime, we thought we’d share one of the in-shop specials - Chef wanted to have something a little different this year, possibly different in packaging or display. As it happens, the wife of our regular Zorko electrician (hi Andy!) is the glass artist and educator, Melissa Misoda.

This ended up being a great connection to have, as after a few phone calls we have a lovely series of individually made blown-glass bowls. They are all approximately of the same size, but no two are completely alike. Colors include blues, garnets, violets and purples, with free-form designs ranging from a somewhat tortis-shell pattern, to flowing stripes and striations. They are then packaged with a generous portion of our own confections. Given the limited number that we have, they are only available in shop, and not by pre-order or special order.

Artists and artisans come from a wide variety of fields, and we’re happy to have found a way to support a local artist and her craft while also continuing to present something unique for our customers. For those of you who like glass work but might not be into chocolate, there’s a link to Melissa’s Etsy site in her web-pages.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Photo Monday! If you’ve been in since last Friday, you...

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:08:00 -0800

Photo Monday!

If you’ve been in since last Friday, you might have noticed some changes in the candy case. We’re still trying out new formulas, so there will varied levels of rotation/replacement this season. If you have a favorite, please let us know! That being said, one of the types of confection that Chef is playing with are butter based ganache. This is where you use butter as the “liquid” or emulsifying phase (liquor and liquid flavors might be added, but at a small percentage of the total mass). Most of our ganaches are either based on cream or fruit puree as liquid phase. Butter ganache tends to be a little firmer, but creamy due to the larger percentage of butter fat.

In this case, we have an eggnog butter ganache. The first photo is the confection after having been piped with a star-tip. A small disc of chocolate is piped, left to cool and harden, and then the ganache mixed and piped. Once it sets up a little more, it’s ready to dip or enrobe. This brings us to the second photo, with is one of the creams enrobed and drizzled with a little white chocolate for decoration (with our rum-raisin in the background). Since we were enrobing a couple of different batches that afternoon, we used dark chocolate as normal. Had we wanted to have the ribs show more, we’d have thinned the chocolate with a little extra cocoa butter.

Following that is a batch of unfinished cookies- These are marzipan based cookies, with layers of strawberry, lemon and pistachio, with a touch of raspberry jam in between. They are then enrobed in dark chocolate, so you get a nice snap of chocolate followed by a softer cookie. The flavors are more subtle that forthright, so it’s a nice balance. The only downside is that any batches of these made this season will be in the holiday cookie plate, and not for sale per piece.

Finally in this short photo piece is our new(ish) Linzer tart (note- it’s not a traditional Linzertorte, which is also sometimes called a tart). The shell is made with an amalgam of pate sucre and Linzer dough, so it has more of a tart shell texture, but still the nice Linzer flavor. The filling is a raspberry cremeux, baked in the shell for this dessert (baking the cremeux intensifies the flavors and gives it a slightly firmer texture). The finish is a raspberry glaze and then the edging of Linzer cookie squares.

So, a short photo set for Monday. Have a great start to your week everyone!

Giving thanks a day later

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 13:42:48 -0800

As most people that work in a food related field know, holidays can sometimes feel like they happen to other people- we may be closed on a particular holiday, but at least a few people from production have to work, if only to keep the levain fed and happy. If we’re only closed for one day, then a regular production crew comes in.

This means that sometimes we address a few things holiday related post the actual holiday. Thanksgiving in the US has had a long and slightly varied history, from giving thanks for a successful harvest, to giving thanks for actually arriving in the, at that time, New World. In both cases, there is the sense of being appreciative for the good things that have come your way. There can be a lot of effort and hard work going into achieving a goal, but there’s always something somewhat beyond our control that we end up grateful for going our way (philosophical or religious connotations are left to the reader).

What are we thankful for? In short- You, our customers. We are deeply appreciative that we can make a living making and serving the food that we do, and that our community shops with us. We work hard to earn your business, and are grateful for the opportunity to do so.

So, thank you, sincerely, and we wish you the best of times with friends and family this holiday season.

Now get out there and enjoy the afternoon- it’s sunny in our neck of the woods, which means a nice stroll might be in order (and then some hot tea and a croissant after!).

Thanksgiving reminder pt. 2

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:49:22 -0800

We went through our orders this morning, and we’re right at last year. We have a great team that works really smoothly and efficiently together, so Chef says we can do more. As such, we’ve extended holiday pre-ordering through today (Monday)!

Thanksgiving reminder

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:46:59 -0800

What are we thankful for? That we have such a great community around us. We work hard to earn your custom, and we’re grateful that we continue to have the opportunity to serve you.

As a reminder, we are taking pre-orders for Thanksgiving until the end of business this Sunday, the 20th. The above link has details about our holiday offerings, including pricing. Any of our current items are also available for ordering, from baguettes to rum baba, and everything in between. We will be working hard to make sure we have a lot of variety on the 23rd, but if there is something you know you really want (baguettes, for example), we highly recommend pre-ordering.

We are open regular hours during the week, closed Thanksgiving day itself, and open Friday at regular hours.

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Just a short Thursday post to browse on your coffee break and...

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:51:00 -0800

Just a short Thursday post to browse on your coffee break and catch up a little about what’s happening in production.

Chef has been busy building display pieces. Once again we’ll have our snowman, nutcracker and penguin, but they are going to look a bit different this year. The snowman and nutcracker will be more on the rustic side. For the snowman, after molding, a thin layer of milk chocolate was hand applied, and then Chef started in with small carving tools- looking for a distressed wood kind of look.

The peguin is in an interesting in between state. It started out our regular chilly-Willy, and will become something more abstracted, but based on a real penguin, not the cartoon character. I should write ‘if it works’ because there is some finessing going on, and well, sometimes chocolate breaks.

And I know…it’s not quite Thanksgiving yet, but the cookie assortment for the holiday cookie plates has been figured out. We’ll have Linzers, gingerbread men, flooded/decorated shortbread, mini-Madelines, mini-brownies…It will be a very full plate (this, along with our Stollen, were popular host/hostess gifts). We have a couple of other holiday surprises that will be brought out after Thanksgiving…

So, again, just a short post for this morning. Have a great Thursday everyone!

In amongst the various new desserts and confections we’ve...

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:52:16 -0700

In amongst the various new desserts and confections we’ve had coming out, we decided to add some old-school confections. We have some experiments in cherry cordials, liquor cordials and chew caramels going. One definite success we’ve had is with a good toffee.

Toffees are another variation on cooked sugar confections, with the temperature cooked high enough, and the fat/liquid content kept low enough that the final product is a hard candy, as opposed to a soft or firm chew. Ours is cream based, and uses lots, I mean LOTS of butter. We also add almonds at the end. We’ve tried both slivered and sliced (sliced shown here), and so far both work. Slivered might end up with a better bite/mouth feel though.

Did I mention there’s a lot of butter? (Considering this bakery, that should come as no surprise- we like our butter)

Notice the thermocouple probe being supported by the yardstick- you want to keep the mass well mixed so you avoid being faked out by a hot spot and pulling the confection too early. With a well stirred toffee it’s pretty easy. With pate du fruits and chew caramels, placement of the thermometer can be important, as can calibration. If the mass isn’t mixed well enough, or the placement is at the edge where the temperatures tend to be higher, or your thermometer/thermocouple is off-calibration, you can get a false read on your target temperature. If this happens, you end up with a confection that doesn’t set up right (if at all). It’s a common mistake when first learning to do these kinds of confections. Luckily, assuming you erred on the side of pulling to early, you can at least recover an interesting sauce or jelly out of the batch (you can’t really try to cook it further after you find it’s not setting up).

Besides the issue of accurate batch temperature measurement, you have to keep mass moving so that there isn’t any scorching or burning. What this means is you end up constantly stirring a continually thickening mass (like most bakery work, sugar confections are great for forearm and hand strength), and trust me, you don’t want to accidentally splash (sugar burns are not nice). Pate du fruits are very each to scorch, due to the fruit puree. Caramels aren’t quite as easy to scorch due to the high burn point, but it is possible (and in some cases, desirable).

In the photos above, you can see how the mass of cream, sugar and butter ranges from the light yellow of melted butter to the darkening brown tones as the sugar caramelizes, water boils out (you reach a series of boil points based on proportion of water, with jumps in temperature as the amount of water decreases…the joys of thermodynamics). The butter fat browns some as well, and there is likely a little caramelizing of the dairy proteins. Once we hit the target temperature, we pour in almonds, mix and then pour the mass on our marble slab (which happens to actually be granite). Some quick pre-cut impressions are made, and then it’s allowed to set up and cool.

After cooling, the pre-cut pieces are further broken or cut to size, and any slabs left are taken to be coated with chocolate. The small broken scraps tend to disappear after a call of ‘Scraps! Anyone want a taste?’

From there, it’s a matter of breaking up the coated slabs and packaging them.

So…we now have toffee. Buttery, tasty, toffee.

Have a great Friday everyone!

Just a few images for this windy Friday afternoon. Firstly, we...

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:49:29 -0700

Just a few images for this windy Friday afternoon. Firstly, we have a new espresso machine. Our previous one did a lot of heavy duty work and after 5 years, it was time for some serious refurbishment (we’ve been running pretty much at that machine’s capacity on the weekends, and that’s hard on equipment over the long haul, so this isn’t a knock against it by any means).

As such, we found the next model up from ours and decided it was time for an update. It’s quite shiny, which we like (hence, being able to see our barista, Laura, carefully watching a pull). Even better, it’s pressure regulation is more consistent, which means more consistent pulls even on really busy days. Our baristas are happier too, since it’s easier to do things right when your equipment is behaving.

We’ve been having lots of fun with desserts as well. Besides the rum baba shown last week, we’ve also added a grapefruit mousse cake, a walnut biscuit with apples (and fancy chocolate fan work), a new triple mousse cake, and what we’re calling a Symphony.

The grapefruit mousse cake is layered with puff pastry, and topped with a tender sponge cake. We’ve found it works well to lay the slice on it’s side, so that the mousse doesn’t squish out while you cut off a bite. Then again, that’s part of the fun of layered mousse cakes.

For the walnut biscuit- it’s a tender sponge cake with walnuts that is topped with honey glazed apples and a chocolate Bavarian cream. The final decor might change a little (there’s a debate between fully glazed, and only glazing the top), but the fans are going to be showing up. It’s actually a very classic technique that we just haven’t been doing much. It’s not what could be called enormously difficult, but it takes a number of repetitions to get the speed and angle right to be able to make the fan correctly (this may end up part of a post on decor…). It is a little more fussy to set up, but it’s definitely a nice presentation.

The triple mousse cake has a white chocolate mousse center, milk chocolate mousse top layer and dark chocolate mousse base with just a thin later of chocolate sponge for structure. To top off the chocolate mousse? More chocolate of course- in the form of glaze and lattice decor. The three types of chocolate actually work well together, with the right amount of creamy undertones to compliment the richness of the darker chocolates.

For the coffee lovers, the Symphony is a playful take on opera cake. A coffee creme Madame layered with a dark chocolate mousse and rolled together in a chiffon cake brushed with coffee simple syrup. At the center is a blackberry mousse, and the piece is finished with a coffee butter cream. If you like coffee and chocolate, but weren’t as enthusiastic about the chestnut and anise in the Magellan as this blogger was, this might be the dessert for you.

Next week we’ll have a look at some of the new chocolates! The case is pretty full right now, with some old favorites and several new ones too!

So, a short photo post for today. Have a great weekend everyone, and don’t forget that the Junction is hosting a Halloween treat walk from 1-3pm this Saturday. Details about this and other Junction events can be found one the West Seattle Junction Association’s homepage.