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NHNick badge: Community Member

How to duplicate a bread I've had

There's a bakery in Maine that produced the most wonderful bread during the holiday season that contained cran-raspberries, rum soaked raisins, almond paste and hazelnuts. I'd love to be able to duplicate the bread, or at least a similar version, that I could make for family all year round, but I have no idea how to attempt it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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BakerIrene
  • Reply by BakerIrene on February 08, 2012 at 1:04 pm
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First of all, buy a half dozen loaves and freeze them so you can have a reference point.

Second, how does the bakery describe the loaf? It sounds like their own version of stollen which has almond paste.

Third a search engine might help you find any knock-off recipes already developed.

Fourth, use the stollen or sweet bread recipe of your choice and try adding the different fruits. You can then fine tune according to side-by-side tests with the bakery's bread.

Oh yeah, this will NOT be a bread machine recipe. This kind of dough can be mixed with a mixer, but it will need to be fully kneaded. The fruits/nuts need to be added by hand.

NHNick
  • Reply by NHNick on February 08, 2012 at 6:31 pm
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Thanks, some great ideas. I hope I can still buy some loaves, and I'll try your suggestions.

ChrisfromCT

I'm curious, what's the name of the bakery?

--jej
  • Reply by --jej on April 09, 2012 at 2:48 pm
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One of the gals on the oldBC used to flat-out ask commercial places like a bakery for the recipe, and often get it. Have you tried that?

Also, newspapers will sometimes also get requested recipes for their readers. So check with your local newspaper(s) and see if they might help you out with the querying...

Worth a try, and you might get lucky. And it can't hurt anything.

Mike Nolan
  • Reply by Mike Nolan on April 09, 2012 at 5:00 pm
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If you DO get the recipe, be prepared to have to convert it to home-size quantities using baker's math. You may also have to do some guessing or substituting on ingredients, such as what kind of flour it calls for.

My best friend in college used to work as a short order cook in NY during the summer, and several times offered to make the Mariott recipe for beef, macaroni and tomato for us.

It started with:

Brown 25 pounds of ground beef.

BakerIrene
  • Reply by BakerIrene on April 10, 2012 at 12:27 pm
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Well gee Mike, you could have invited your college friend to start with 2.5 pounds of ground beef. That fraction should have been something that he could figure out...or you might have done the figuring for him?

frick
  • Reply by frick on April 10, 2012 at 3:41 pm
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Mike is excellent at figuring out exactly that sort of thing. Many people somehow cannot, even with a calculator. With breads, unfortunately, there are some ingredients we can't get so breaking down a recipe for the home cook can be a real chore.

When I see a recipe in the LAT, attributed to a bakery or restaurant, it nearly always says "adapted from a recipe by XXX". I finally figured out that it was the breaking down, or substituting leavenings or additives, that required the "adaptation".