Every Tool An Iconic NYC Bakery Uses To Make Bread & Pastry _ Bon Appétit

The Art and Science of Bread Making at Bread's Bakery

At Bread's Bakery, the art of bread making is a labor of love that requires precision, patience, and a deep understanding of the intricacies of yeast fermentation. To achieve this level of excellence, the bakery employs an array of specialized equipment designed to facilitate the various stages of the bread-making process.

The Motorized Molder: A Tool for Consistency

One of the first pieces of equipment used in the bread-making process is the motorized molder. This tool molds the dough into uniform shapes and sizes, allowing the bakers to create a consistent product with each batch. The molder is particularly useful when it comes to creating baguettes, which are a staple of French cuisine. By shaping the dough into an even size and length, the molder ensures that every baguette is identical in terms of shape and size.

The Proofing Basket: Shaping the Dough to Perfection

After the dough has been molded, it is placed in a proofing basket lined with linen. The linen helps to control the moisture levels in the dough, preventing it from becoming too soggy or developing unevenly. This basket also serves as a guide for the bakers, helping them to shape the dough into the desired form. The proofing basket is particularly useful when working with high-hydration doughs, such as those used for sourdough bread.

The Dec Oven: A State-of-the-Art Baking Facility

One of the most impressive pieces of equipment in the bakery is the dec oven. This state-of-the-art facility allows the bakers to produce a wide range of bread products, from delicate pastries to crusty baguettes. The oven can be set to precise temperatures and humidity levels, making it possible to achieve consistent results with each batch.

The Stone: A Key Component in Bread Baking

The stone is another critical piece of equipment in the dec oven. Its high temperature (ranging from 500°F to 550°F) provides a gentle heat that helps to develop the gluten in the dough, giving bread its characteristic texture and structure. The stone also plays an important role in creating a crispy crust on the bread.

Steam: A Essential Element in Bread Baking

Steam is another crucial component of the bread-baking process. It helps to create a light, airy texture in the bread and contributes to the development of a golden-brown crust. By controlling the amount of steam used in the oven, the bakers can achieve a range of effects, from a delicate crumb to a crispy, caramelized crust.

The Loader: A Tool for Efficient Production

One of the most efficient tools in the bakery is the loader. This piece of equipment allows the bakers to load and unload dough from the proofing baskets into the oven with ease and speed. The loader is particularly useful when producing large quantities of bread, as it enables the bakers to work quickly and efficiently.

The Oven Peel: A Tool for Smooth, Effortless Baking

Another essential tool in the bakery is the oven peel. This piece of equipment allows the bakers to slide dough from the proofing basket onto the stone with ease and precision. The oven peel is particularly useful when baking baguettes, as it helps to prevent the dough from tearing or becoming misshapen.

The Blade: A Tool for Scoring Bread

Finally, there is the blade – a small, handheld tool used to score bread before baking. The blade is carefully designed with a sharp edge that allows the baker to create precise cuts in the dough. By scoring the bread, the baker can control the amount of steam that enters the oven, which helps to achieve a crispy crust and a tender crumb.

The Fork Mixer: A Tool for Developing Gluten

One of the most unique pieces of equipment in the bakery is the fork mixer. This tool slowly rotates the dough while mixing it with a fork, helping to develop the gluten in the bread. The fork mixer is particularly useful when working with high-hydration doughs, such as those used for sourdough bread.

The Wood Board: A Tool for Preserving Baguette Shape

Another essential tool in the bakery is the wood board – a simple yet effective piece of equipment that helps to preserve the shape of baguettes. The wood board is carefully designed with a curved edge that allows it to gently support the dough as it rises, preventing it from becoming misshapen or developing unevenly.

The Blade's Role in Scoring Bread

The blade plays a crucial role in scoring bread, allowing the baker to create precise cuts in the dough. By using the blade to score the bread, the baker can control the amount of steam that enters the oven, which helps to achieve a crispy crust and a tender crumb.

Achieving Consistency: The Importance of Repetition

One of the key factors in achieving consistency in bread making is repetition. At Bread's Bakery, the bakers work tirelessly to produce thousands of items every day, using the specialized equipment mentioned above to ensure that each batch meets their high standards. By repeating the same process over and over again, the bakers can refine their technique and develop a deep understanding of the subtleties involved in bread making.

Conclusion

Bread's Bakery is a testament to the power of precision, patience, and attention to detail in the art of bread making. The bakery's use of specialized equipment allows it to produce a wide range of delicious bread products with consistency and reliability. Whether you're a seasoned baker or just starting out, the techniques and tools used at Bread's Bakery offer valuable insights into the world of artisanal bread making.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: eni'm idan leschnik head pastor chef here at bread's bakery in new york city and this is every tool we use to make our bread and pastries this is the sheeter we use this to sheet out our dough and sheeting out meaning to thin it out by the time it takes a human to actually roll the dough out this can do in a fraction of that time i want a certain thickness of our croissants to showcase the layers so when you are eating a croissant it actually makes a huge difference how thick the dough was the layers are going to feel different meaning that the crispiness of the layers will feel different as well other thing that this machine has is this rolling pin what we use this for is actually to catch the dough as it comes towards us and be able to roll it up and then move it onto the tables this is our custom-made 10-foot long bobcat table babka is one of our most popular items over the course of 24 hours we work 24 7 and we literally make thousands of vodkas on this table every single day we're able to cut our vodka according to the length just because we mark these like little dots over here that tell us exactly the length of every single individual vodka that we're going to make our babka is a laminated layered dough that's smeared with a different fillings in our case our chocolate bark is made with nutella and chocolate chips it's rolled into a roulade cut in half and then braided individually into our molds this is our bicycle cutter we actually use this for marking this allows us to make some of our arugula or arboricus i can turn this little knob here and then adjust the width of how i want the dough to be and then i can mark these triangles on the entire dough afterwards i'll go over and follow with a knife and cut according to these lines if we were to try and cut this by hand we'd have to mark each and every line like that but instead when i use this bicycle cutter i can actually just drag it right across the dough and get an even cut and usually it's very very perfect so this is a tourney knife this is a knife that is made in switzerland when i use this i can get very clear and very clean cuts of our viennoiseries or our croissants if you look at the shape of it it has a curvature like that and it meets to a very fine point because it has that curvature and very little of the knife actually touches the dough it doesn't damage the layers in any bit you never want to have to cut this way you always want to lift up your knife and only let that point touch the dough as best as possible because that's gonna actually preserve the layers even more this is an offset spatula and the reason is because it's offset and this allows us a lot of control when we're spreading any types of fillings but mostly for our bobcat production if this was completely flat i wouldn't be able to actually lift up my hand and my hand would get completely smeared with nutella so these actually make the quality better because then we can go a little bit quicker maintain the dose temperature which is always the most important and still get a really quality and even spread this is our giant immersion blender it immerses itself into whatever it is that we're mixing we deal with very big quantities of batters or liquids and whenever we do that we actually need something that's that has a very long neck as you can see that can basically go right into whatever it is that we're mixing all the way up until here and then continue to work properly and it has this capacity of creating emulsions emulsions trying to combine fat and water normally fat and water molecules they don't combine an immersion blender is something that actually gives us that ability to cut these molecules on a very small level and be able with the help of some sort of emulsifier to combine those two enemies a lot of home versions of immersion blenders are closed off here because it traps a lot of air air is always our enemy whenever we're creating any type of emulsions the ability to have that air flow through and kind of not being trapped in there is very important for the final texture so the less air bubbles when we're creating an emulsion the better always this is a food grade spray gun this allows us to create and pulverize different textures mostly for chocolate whenever we spray chocolate a lot of times we're looking for a velvety effect we're able to mix a mixture of cocoa butter and chocolate and at a certain temperature spray it onto a very cold surface and as those tiny little droplets hit frozen surface they set because of the cocoa butter in here and i can choose exactly how much of that chocolate i want to put on there this is our egg wash spray gun our egg wash that we use is a mixture of egg yolks and water and what that does is basically creates a really nice fine kind of shine in a nice burnished color but at the same time preserving those layers and making sure that they're still crispy so we'll pump this create enough pressure in there and then be able to press this button and to direct how much egg wash we're actually putting and it saves a lot of time because traditionally egg washing used to be a brush action you want the minimum amount of pressure onto them so that's why this egg wash bottle is very gentle on the actual pastry this is our pastry brush we use this mostly for syruping our bobcat its bristles are very dense when we're dunking this into the syrup and then brushing our vodkas it's important that every single bristle in there gets drenched in that syrup and then that allows us to get a very even and thick coating of the syrup so that creates a very good texture in terms of whatever it is that we're brushing onto and this is our vanguard oven this oven is a convection oven that allows us first of all to rotate the entire rack creating a very even bake throughout so a convection oven allows the air to flow throughout a convection actually allows that air to circulate and hot air to circulate maintains its heat very very well and creates a very strong bake in the beginning we can even set it to have program so that it knows automatically to start at a certain temperature and then slowly go to a different temperature over a certain amount of time we have an ability to open the vent vent is to release the steam that's being built up in this oven this is steam this is actually the opposite of what we're trying to do with the vent is to inject more steam in there to create even more pressure and to delay the formation of a crust this is the spiral mixer there's a dough hook here that actually looks like a spiral what the spiral actually does is it very very gently mixes the dough and needs it as if a hand with mixing it as well what's nice about this also is that it has this this grate over here right above which basically allows us to throw stuff in as the mix goes normally what you'd have to do is stop the mix throw in butter but in this case we can just continue to go this can hold up to 120 kilos of dough which is quite heavy and then throughout the day we can you usually mix close to a few tons of dough all in this mixer i'm in the pastry department but we also have a massive bread department led by darwin castillo and he's going to show you the rest this is the rounder this is used to make different types of rolls like sweet rolls holla rolls and you can make a 100 times more than what you could make by hand this is the plate we use for the rounder you take the plate you place your doughnut you put it inside you press it down cut it and then round it for the baking process it is very important to have the buns the same size if you have all of your doughs symmetric it is easier for you to bake them i love this machine this uh does my job a lot easier this is called the divider see devise the dough this machine is great because you can divide even pieces you place your dough in there take it down you make the dough nice and even and we have a few functions here you save a lot of time it's the same as if you were dividing each each unit by hand this is called the motor it molds the dough so this molder is used to do our baguettes this helps you to shape each piece into an even size and it shapes it into any length you want this is for the thickness of the dough and this is for the length of the dough we shape between uh 300 and 500 baguettes a day you used all this equipment but still you finish up everything by hand the machine will not give you the final item this is called the proofing basket it helps your dough built into the shape you want if there is a linen around here this is to avoid the dough from getting too moist it forms like a dry crust so it's easier for you to score it what i mostly use these baskets for is for the high hydration dose which is the sourdough what you want to see once you place your dough in there you want to be able to see the dough rising this linen here helps activate all the the yeast or sourdough whatever you're using this is the step before going into the proofer this is called the proofer it proof is the dough open this these are croissants we have final chocolate and we have regular casseroles we have some cinnamon rolls down there the cool thing about it is that you can leave your items in there without worrying they will prove slowly or too fast this is a retiring overnight the program normally goes on around midnight so it goes from cool to proof and there is like a run time from 12 to 1 it goes from 36 degrees to 50 degrees from one to two it goes from 50 degrees to 65 degrees it will all depend on what temperature you want at the end of the program here we have the dec oven we have five different floors you can fit up to 50 loaves per deck this is used to bake most of the bread department items depending on the type of bread you're baking that's how you're gonna use your temperature for baguettes we use a very high temperature so it will range from 500 degrees to 550 degrees you can set the temperature for the stone and also the temperature for the top the stone of this oil is very important it heats up at a certain temperature that it gives a pump to the dough so if you don't have that pump the bread will not rise in openness lines most of the items get a steam steam is very important for the for the dose to rise in order to get a nice color in volume you need both stone and stem once your breasts are at a 80 percent bait you will need to open your vent the event is to to dry the dose so you get a nice crust this is so heavy it weighs tons of pounds in order to have this in we had to reinforce the floor otherwise he couldn't hold it this is called the loader this is part of the dec oven so the loader is used to fill the oven uh quicker than if you would do it with a board so this is called the oven peel as you can see this is three times smaller than the loader in order to fill an oven you will have to use this six times to fill two two decks once you have all the dots in the belt you put it in this hangers here then you can go with as much speed as you want this is called the wood board this is used for one item specifically which is baguette it holds the dough for you from the kush from the tray if you wouldn't have this tool it would tend to the gas and you don't want to the gas the dough before it goes into the oven you need the butter not to be the same size of the baguette but a little bigger so this is called the blade the only part you use to score bread is the corner of it you take it you score that cut there will allow the the gas from the dough to escape and that's how you get that rice too and you score from tip to cheap our baguettes are pretty peculiar i would say because personally i like my baguettes to be tapered so you get that nice smokiness at the end this is the fork mixer what this does is basically needs the dough we have the fork here it slowly starts rotating little by little then picks up the dough this is basically used for baguette dough and fresh sourdough since it needs to be mixed a slow motion the reason of the shape of the pork is to prevent from ripping the dough we mix between 500 and 800 loves every day once you start developing the gluten it goes to second speed then just it goes a little faster and that's conceived when the dough is ready so at home you don't need all this fancy equipment but here at bread's bakery we make thousands of items every single day and all these tools allow us to fulfill our passion all right that was greati'm idan leschnik head pastor chef here at bread's bakery in new york city and this is every tool we use to make our bread and pastries this is the sheeter we use this to sheet out our dough and sheeting out meaning to thin it out by the time it takes a human to actually roll the dough out this can do in a fraction of that time i want a certain thickness of our croissants to showcase the layers so when you are eating a croissant it actually makes a huge difference how thick the dough was the layers are going to feel different meaning that the crispiness of the layers will feel different as well other thing that this machine has is this rolling pin what we use this for is actually to catch the dough as it comes towards us and be able to roll it up and then move it onto the tables this is our custom-made 10-foot long bobcat table babka is one of our most popular items over the course of 24 hours we work 24 7 and we literally make thousands of vodkas on this table every single day we're able to cut our vodka according to the length just because we mark these like little dots over here that tell us exactly the length of every single individual vodka that we're going to make our babka is a laminated layered dough that's smeared with a different fillings in our case our chocolate bark is made with nutella and chocolate chips it's rolled into a roulade cut in half and then braided individually into our molds this is our bicycle cutter we actually use this for marking this allows us to make some of our arugula or arboricus i can turn this little knob here and then adjust the width of how i want the dough to be and then i can mark these triangles on the entire dough afterwards i'll go over and follow with a knife and cut according to these lines if we were to try and cut this by hand we'd have to mark each and every line like that but instead when i use this bicycle cutter i can actually just drag it right across the dough and get an even cut and usually it's very very perfect so this is a tourney knife this is a knife that is made in switzerland when i use this i can get very clear and very clean cuts of our viennoiseries or our croissants if you look at the shape of it it has a curvature like that and it meets to a very fine point because it has that curvature and very little of the knife actually touches the dough it doesn't damage the layers in any bit you never want to have to cut this way you always want to lift up your knife and only let that point touch the dough as best as possible because that's gonna actually preserve the layers even more this is an offset spatula and the reason is because it's offset and this allows us a lot of control when we're spreading any types of fillings but mostly for our bobcat production if this was completely flat i wouldn't be able to actually lift up my hand and my hand would get completely smeared with nutella so these actually make the quality better because then we can go a little bit quicker maintain the dose temperature which is always the most important and still get a really quality and even spread this is our giant immersion blender it immerses itself into whatever it is that we're mixing we deal with very big quantities of batters or liquids and whenever we do that we actually need something that's that has a very long neck as you can see that can basically go right into whatever it is that we're mixing all the way up until here and then continue to work properly and it has this capacity of creating emulsions emulsions trying to combine fat and water normally fat and water molecules they don't combine an immersion blender is something that actually gives us that ability to cut these molecules on a very small level and be able with the help of some sort of emulsifier to combine those two enemies a lot of home versions of immersion blenders are closed off here because it traps a lot of air air is always our enemy whenever we're creating any type of emulsions the ability to have that air flow through and kind of not being trapped in there is very important for the final texture so the less air bubbles when we're creating an emulsion the better always this is a food grade spray gun this allows us to create and pulverize different textures mostly for chocolate whenever we spray chocolate a lot of times we're looking for a velvety effect we're able to mix a mixture of cocoa butter and chocolate and at a certain temperature spray it onto a very cold surface and as those tiny little droplets hit frozen surface they set because of the cocoa butter in here and i can choose exactly how much of that chocolate i want to put on there this is our egg wash spray gun our egg wash that we use is a mixture of egg yolks and water and what that does is basically creates a really nice fine kind of shine in a nice burnished color but at the same time preserving those layers and making sure that they're still crispy so we'll pump this create enough pressure in there and then be able to press this button and to direct how much egg wash we're actually putting and it saves a lot of time because traditionally egg washing used to be a brush action you want the minimum amount of pressure onto them so that's why this egg wash bottle is very gentle on the actual pastry this is our pastry brush we use this mostly for syruping our bobcat its bristles are very dense when we're dunking this into the syrup and then brushing our vodkas it's important that every single bristle in there gets drenched in that syrup and then that allows us to get a very even and thick coating of the syrup so that creates a very good texture in terms of whatever it is that we're brushing onto and this is our vanguard oven this oven is a convection oven that allows us first of all to rotate the entire rack creating a very even bake throughout so a convection oven allows the air to flow throughout a convection actually allows that air to circulate and hot air to circulate maintains its heat very very well and creates a very strong bake in the beginning we can even set it to have program so that it knows automatically to start at a certain temperature and then slowly go to a different temperature over a certain amount of time we have an ability to open the vent vent is to release the steam that's being built up in this oven this is steam this is actually the opposite of what we're trying to do with the vent is to inject more steam in there to create even more pressure and to delay the formation of a crust this is the spiral mixer there's a dough hook here that actually looks like a spiral what the spiral actually does is it very very gently mixes the dough and needs it as if a hand with mixing it as well what's nice about this also is that it has this this grate over here right above which basically allows us to throw stuff in as the mix goes normally what you'd have to do is stop the mix throw in butter but in this case we can just continue to go this can hold up to 120 kilos of dough which is quite heavy and then throughout the day we can you usually mix close to a few tons of dough all in this mixer i'm in the pastry department but we also have a massive bread department led by darwin castillo and he's going to show you the rest this is the rounder this is used to make different types of rolls like sweet rolls holla rolls and you can make a 100 times more than what you could make by hand this is the plate we use for the rounder you take the plate you place your doughnut you put it inside you press it down cut it and then round it for the baking process it is very important to have the buns the same size if you have all of your doughs symmetric it is easier for you to bake them i love this machine this uh does my job a lot easier this is called the divider see devise the dough this machine is great because you can divide even pieces you place your dough in there take it down you make the dough nice and even and we have a few functions here you save a lot of time it's the same as if you were dividing each each unit by hand this is called the motor it molds the dough so this molder is used to do our baguettes this helps you to shape each piece into an even size and it shapes it into any length you want this is for the thickness of the dough and this is for the length of the dough we shape between uh 300 and 500 baguettes a day you used all this equipment but still you finish up everything by hand the machine will not give you the final item this is called the proofing basket it helps your dough built into the shape you want if there is a linen around here this is to avoid the dough from getting too moist it forms like a dry crust so it's easier for you to score it what i mostly use these baskets for is for the high hydration dose which is the sourdough what you want to see once you place your dough in there you want to be able to see the dough rising this linen here helps activate all the the yeast or sourdough whatever you're using this is the step before going into the proofer this is called the proofer it proof is the dough open this these are croissants we have final chocolate and we have regular casseroles we have some cinnamon rolls down there the cool thing about it is that you can leave your items in there without worrying they will prove slowly or too fast this is a retiring overnight the program normally goes on around midnight so it goes from cool to proof and there is like a run time from 12 to 1 it goes from 36 degrees to 50 degrees from one to two it goes from 50 degrees to 65 degrees it will all depend on what temperature you want at the end of the program here we have the dec oven we have five different floors you can fit up to 50 loaves per deck this is used to bake most of the bread department items depending on the type of bread you're baking that's how you're gonna use your temperature for baguettes we use a very high temperature so it will range from 500 degrees to 550 degrees you can set the temperature for the stone and also the temperature for the top the stone of this oil is very important it heats up at a certain temperature that it gives a pump to the dough so if you don't have that pump the bread will not rise in openness lines most of the items get a steam steam is very important for the for the dose to rise in order to get a nice color in volume you need both stone and stem once your breasts are at a 80 percent bait you will need to open your vent the event is to to dry the dose so you get a nice crust this is so heavy it weighs tons of pounds in order to have this in we had to reinforce the floor otherwise he couldn't hold it this is called the loader this is part of the dec oven so the loader is used to fill the oven uh quicker than if you would do it with a board so this is called the oven peel as you can see this is three times smaller than the loader in order to fill an oven you will have to use this six times to fill two two decks once you have all the dots in the belt you put it in this hangers here then you can go with as much speed as you want this is called the wood board this is used for one item specifically which is baguette it holds the dough for you from the kush from the tray if you wouldn't have this tool it would tend to the gas and you don't want to the gas the dough before it goes into the oven you need the butter not to be the same size of the baguette but a little bigger so this is called the blade the only part you use to score bread is the corner of it you take it you score that cut there will allow the the gas from the dough to escape and that's how you get that rice too and you score from tip to cheap our baguettes are pretty peculiar i would say because personally i like my baguettes to be tapered so you get that nice smokiness at the end this is the fork mixer what this does is basically needs the dough we have the fork here it slowly starts rotating little by little then picks up the dough this is basically used for baguette dough and fresh sourdough since it needs to be mixed a slow motion the reason of the shape of the pork is to prevent from ripping the dough we mix between 500 and 800 loves every day once you start developing the gluten it goes to second speed then just it goes a little faster and that's conceived when the dough is ready so at home you don't need all this fancy equipment but here at bread's bakery we make thousands of items every single day and all these tools allow us to fulfill our passion all right that was great\n"