Thursday, February 17, 2011

Twisted Pigs

I had someone call and order some donuts and cinnamon rolls (thank you Norene).  I wasn't too worried about making them but Bob thought we should practice.  Just in case. 

I really hate it when he's right.

I didn't realize how much you forget when you don't do something for a few months. 

We started on Sunday and made donuts.  Everything came out OK,
but there were some glitches. 

Then we made some more on Tuesday. 
I tried making a batch of cinnamon rolls and having them rise overnight in the fridge. 
 I didn't like how that worked.  I decided to get up early and make the dough the morning I needed it.  I know that will work.

We've been trying to figure out an alternative to maple bars.  We don't have a bar cutter, 
(it's expensive so it's not a priority to purchase right now).
We decided to try maple twists. 
Not with the chocolate dough just the plain and we left the sugar out of the middle. 

Anyway, those turned out OK.  Still need to work on them some but they are coming along.  Tuesday in our test run we made maple twists with bacon.  Bob, who feels the need to name the donuts decided to call them "Twisted Pigs".  He liked the name so much he thinks we should use it for the name of the bakery.  Please feel free to comment on that idea!!

So today was the big day to make two dozen cinnamon rolls and two dozen donuts.  I made three batches of cinnamon roll dough and two batches of donut dough.  We ended up with about 2 1/2 dozen cinnamon rolls and 5 dozen donuts. 

Not having industrial size equipment is a challenge when you have to have more than a dozen or two of something.  But since we don't make several dozen donuts a day it's hard to justify buying industrial equipment right now.  We'll get there. 
Sooner rather than later I hope!

Here are some pictures of today's creations. 
Please feel free to weigh in on the "Twisted Pig" idea.