Uneven slices
Hey everybody!
I'm brand new to this forum! I am a baker at a small coffee shop In Galveston, Texas.
We bake banana and zucchini bread year round, and introduce seasonal breads throughout the year. We have noticed that it is seemingly impossible for us to get 8 even slices out of our loaves. I've tried measured cutting boards to cut 1" thick pieces, and even though the slices all weigh the same- the middle slices are usually taller and make the smaller pieces look far too small to sell at full price.
I am stuck on what to try next. Does anybody have any recommendations for a bread pan I should try? A different technique, perhaps? We lose so much money by discounting the smaller pieces and I would love to change that. Please let me know if you have any ideas! I'd love to hear them.
Thanks in advance, ya'll!
As long as all the pieces are the same weight, I don't see anything wrong with it. Maybe you have to put up a disclaimer about it being the same weight despite different heights.
You could use a bread pan that you can close. Japan has a specialty called shokupan, I'm sure you can pick up a pan for that somewhere.
Or cover the breadpan with something flat and heavy.
You could put the batter into muffin tins, I'm sure that works just as well and also looks nice next to a cup of coffee :)
Thank you for your input!
I agree, I don't see anything wrong with selling all of the slices for full price as long as they are all the same weight. My boss however, she doesn't like that idea.
She wants us to stick to the slices and not pour into muffin tins, although I do think that would be cute!
I'll try a covered pan.
You should consider Pullman loaf pans with lid. It will take some trial and error to get just the right amount of dough in each one, but then you should have more consistent results.
Another thought would be to look for longer loaf pans so that you have more middle slices and less end pieces. Cut up the end pieces and use then ad samples to entice customers.
I just ordered a 10" pan to try out!
I'm going to do one batch in 3 different pans to see which yields the best results.
One loaf in a Pullman pan, one loaf in the longer pan, and the rest of the loaves out of the batch in their normal pans.
Thanks so much for all the advice yall!
Ooooh, I love side-by-side experiments like that. Please share the results!
Like a tube pan, round pan, or a round cake pan with a hole in the middle! :) All slices are the same.
IMG_1862.PNG
I saw a trick last week on a baking show. Batter was poured into a round cake pan and after scraping out the mixer bowl, the baker scraped the spatula, cleaning it off onto the inside rim of the pan letting batter drip down the side into the rest of the batter. My inner voice said, "whoops, she better clean that off or risk a lopsided top." Then she dipped the spatula into the batter and scraped batter thick all around the inside rim, leveled out the middle and into the oven it went. Low and behold the cake rose but came out perfectly flat (no rounded dome) for a beautiful even round cake. Marvelous!
What if you were to try that on the ends of a loaf pan and maybe or maybe not in the middle where it rises the most? May take a trial or two to find out how far in from the ends to slop the batter but it just might work if the batter normally rises to the edge of the pan in the oven.
Can confirm the trick of scraping batter up the edges of the pan. It works for cake layers and cupcakes too, when you’re trying to get level layers instead of domes.