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Meet the Baker: Lumi Cirstea

No one embodies the American dream more vividly than Luminita Cirstea. She is a living testimony to the fact that, in this country, if given a chance and if talented and determined enough (two big if’s), you can become what you want to be.
Born in the small city of Vilcea-Dragasani in Romania to a history teacher and a landscape designer, Lumi always dreamed of working in the food industry. But her parents believed that a career as a baker would be a surefire ticket to long hours and low pay. So she became a telecommunications engineer in Sibiu, a medieval town in Transylvania.
The years passed. She excelled at what she was doing, was sent abroad for further training, and even got promoted, but her heart wasn’t in her career. Each evening she had to set three alarm clocks to make sure she would wake up in the morning, and every morning she had to drag herself out of bed.
The dream hadn’t died, however. Only now it was focused on relocating to the United States, a country where she was convinced it could come true. So, seven years in a row, she tried her luck at the annual Green Card Lottery and in 2001, she hit the jackpot. She won permanent residency and was given one month to wrap up her life in Romania and move to the US.
Lumi said her goodbyes and bought a one-way ticket to Chicago. Why Chicago? When interviewed for her visa by a staff member at the American Consulate, she was asked to choose a port of entry. Her interviewer was from Chicago and told her it was a beautiful city. She picked Chicago.
When she arrived at O’Hare International Airport, Lumi knew exactly three words of English: “okay” “exit” and “thank you.” (Should you be curious to discover what it feels like to arrive in a country where you understand nobody and nobody understands you, click here for The Bridge to a Dream, Lumi’s story of her first hours on American soil.)
Her mom had helped her to pack four enormous suitcases. By the time she was done with the formalities and issued her papers, these four cases were the only ones left on the carousel in the baggage claim area. Nobody was in sight, and she could not read the instructions on how to get a luggage cart. Since she couldn’t possibly carry all of her bags, she picked two at random, removed the tags from the other ones, and left them behind. It was a heartbreak and to this day, she hasn’t had the courage to tell her mother.
The taxi driver took $100 to drive her and her two suitcases to a nearby motel where she stayed until she found her first job. Her telecom experience was of no value since the technologies she had learned in Romania had long ago become obsolete in the US. Through an agency that primarily placed immigrants, she was hired by a wealthy family in the suburbs of Chicago as a live-in dog sitter and housekeeper. In exchange for room and board and a modest stipend, she walked the dogs, prepared their meals, and cleaned the house.
Knowing that she needed to learn English, she asked her employer to help her arrange for lessons which she would pay for out of her own pocket. After a while, she was ready to find a new job where she could practice her English. She was hired for the holiday season at Piron Belgian Chocolatier, and afterwards worked at a variety of jobs that ranged from waitress to veterinary assistant.
She continued to improve her English, attending free ESL (English as a second language) classes at night at a local high school. Once she knew enough English to get by, she enrolled in evening classes in grammar, punctuation and speech at a local community college. She became an American citizen on April 18, 2006, one of the “proudest days of [her] life”.
The next step was to get into culinary school. She applied to and was accepted by the School of Culinary Arts at Kendall College in Chicago. In her mind, food was love and she wanted to make people happy through the dishes she would create.
To support herself while in school, she worked full time in a seafood company where she had secured a sales job. She also received from Les Dames d’Escoffier of Chicago a generous fellowship which helped pay her tuition.
One of the requirements for the year-long program in Professional Cookery was to take a Baking & Pastry class. That class changed her life forever. She decided to continue her education for two more years by working towards an Associate’s Degree in Baking & Pastry and discovered in Chef Melina Kelson-Podolsky’s class that her greatest passion was making artisan bread.
After three years at Kendall, she graduated with an A.A. degree in Baking & Pastry and a Certificate in Professional Cookery. She was selected as the student speaker at the commencement ceremony where she was given the Escoffier Award as well as the George Bay Award for Baking & Pastry Excellence. (For the text of her colorful graduation speech, click here.)

After graduation, Lumi worked at Bennison’s Bakery in Evanston, Illinois where she had earlier completed an internship. She learned to move fast and to be “a dough doctor” (when dough isn’t behaving as expected in a bakery, there is no time to google the issue or peruse through a book). She learned a lot from the owner of the bakery, Jory Downer, winner of the Gold Cup at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (Bread World Cup) in 2005, as well as from his hard-working and talented team.

Chef Downer recommended that she become a Certified Journey Baker. She passed the test in 2008. Always ready to challenge herself, she went one step further the next year and took another exam (both written and hands-on) to become a Certified Baker. Again, she passed.
Meanwhile, in 2008, Lumi competed in the first ever California Raisin Bread Contest with a rye/raisin formula she had spent two months perfecting while working at Bennison’s.

Lumi’s Grand-Prize Winning Rye Raisin Bread

Since her twenty competitors were experienced and well-known bakers from all over the country, she had no expectations to win and simply went for the experience. When her name was called as a Co-Grand Prize Winner (with Lionel Vatinet) in the Artisan Bread category, she became all choked up. (For a look at her formula, click here)

The California Raisin Board awarded all of the winners a tour of California raisin country, various vineyards in the Napa Valley, Yosemite National Park, and the San Francisco Bay area in late March 2009.


At Yosemite

By that time Lumi had left Benisson’s where she had been working full-time since her graduation. She had decided to do some “graduate work” in baking & pastry by taking classes with such master bakers as Didier Rosada and Jeff Hamelman as well as by attending workshops with Paco Torreblanco as well as with Stephan Glacier (with whom she will perfect the making of French macaroons this coming October).


With Jeff Hamelman

She also traveled to work in bakeries under the excellent supervision of Tim Foley at the Bit of Swiss in Michigan and Solveig Tofte at the Turtle Bakery in Minneapolis. Never shy of learning something new, she helped build a brick-oven at Kendall College (for pictures of this experience, click here).
Earlier this year, Lumi also signed up for the “Draft”, a two-day hands-on workshop for bakers hoping to participate in the next Coupe du Monde. She created and then painstakingly tested formulas for six different breads for nearly four months.
At the workshop which took place at the San Francisco Culinary Institute in June, she met “fabulous bakers”, such as John Tredgold (aka J.T.) from Semifreddi’s, Ben Hershberger from the Phoenician, and Matt McDonald from Bouchon Bakery to mention only a few. Working alongside “these stars of the American baking world”, Lumi felt she was once again living a dream.


With J.T.

Today, impatient for each new day to start, she no longer needs three alarm clocks to wake up. She actually wakes up before the alarm goes off. She is eager “to give back what [she] has received, to help make other people passionate about bread, to put [her] fingerprints somewhere” (her own words). And so she will, for sure! Meanwhile keep your eyes peeled for her name! One day you may see it in the list of champion bakers who represent the United States at the Coupe du monde…

I had the good fortune to meet Lumi last spring at SFBI’s Whole Grains Workshop with Didier Rosada. We met again this summer at Artisan III, again with Didier Rosada. True to what her name evokes (“lumen” means “light” in Latin), Lumi has a glow about her. She radiates warmth and generosity and when you hear her story, you can’t help being awed and deeply moved. So let’s give her a solid round of applause and wish her the very best! Lumi, we are honored that you chose to come and live in this country.

Flour : Ash Content

Didier Rosada talked at length about flour during last week’s Artisan III workshop, detailing the flour testing process by which the miller determines the level of enzymes, the protein content and the ash content.
What’s the ash content? The ash content represents the quantity of bran (outer layer of the kernel of wheat) remaining in the flour after the milling process. It is impossible for the miller to separate all of it from the endosperm (starchy part of the grain where most of the carbohydrates and proteins are stored). But the baker needs to know the amount of bran left in the flour as it will have an impact on water absorption, nutrition (mineral content), fermentation activity, breakdown of gluten during mixing, color of the dough, etc. The information will be present on the flour specs sheet, sometimes on the label as well although usually not in this country.
In order to determine the ash content, the miller incinerates some flour at 900 degrees C. All organic components burn and only the minerals are left (most of them are contained in the bran).
In France, the ash content is used to classify the flours. Type 55 flour (T55) : 0.55% of the bran is left in the flour Type 150 (T150) is whole wheat flour.
In Italy, 00 flour contains the least amount of bran and is used for cakes, whereas 0 flour is used for pasta, 1 is all-purpose and 2 is whole wheat.
In the old days, patent flour (the whitest flour) was very much sought after. Not anymore. Today in France, most bakers are moving to T65 because consumers are interested in complementing their diet with more fiber. Some bakers even put T80 in their baguettes as whole wheat is a good way to boost flavor and nutrition.
Yeast feeds on the minerals, so the greater the ash content, the more fermentation activity. For that reason, a smaller amount of yeast should be used in whole wheat dough. Otherwise the fermentation will be too fast. If you go from 100% white to 100% whole wheat, you should use 30 to 40% less yeast.
The bran will affect the strength of the dough as it interferes with gluten formation and punctures the dough, lowering gas retention. Therefore the baker needs to be very careful when fermenting whole wheat dough.
The larger the amount of bran, the darker the color of the crumb and the stronger the flavor ((except if using white whole wheat which is paler and sweeter), the denser the bread and the soggier the crust. For that reason, when baking whole wheat bread, it is best to open the door of the oven towards the end of the baking to make sure the crust stays nice and crispy.
According to Didier, a flour with 0.48 to .54 % ash content is good for artisan baking. You can got to 0.58% with no problem (except that the bread will be a bit darker). The equivalent in France would be T55 to T65.

Musings on Fermentation

Artisan III instructor, Didier Rosada, devoted a whole lecture to fermentation last week, highlighting the role of enzymes and the need for simple sugars, and stressing the relationship between fermentation activity and crust color. When there isn’t enough residual sugar, the crust remains pale. So when using a lot of preferment in a formula, knowing that much of the simple sugar will be consumed prior to the fermentation of the final dough, the baker will be well advised to add a minute amount (0.5% to 1%) of diastatic malt.
This is only true for yeasted breads as some sourdough bacteria are equiped with their own enzymatic system, which means that they are able to degrade their own starch into simple sugars and that the bread will have a beautiful crust without the help of malt.
Alcohol participate in the formation of esters which contribute to the complexity of the flavor. The longer the fermentation, the more esters, which explains why slow bread tastes better. However not all fermentations are created equal and Didier gave us an example which I found so compelling I thought I would share it with you all.
Let’s take some dough which we ferment at room temperature for 30 minutes, divide, shape and put 24 hours in the cooler before baking (26-hour process). Now let’s take the same dough which we ferment three hours at room temperature before dividing, shaping, proofing for one hour and baking (5-hour process). Which one do you think will yield better flavor?
I was astonished to learn that the second one will give a better bread. The reason lies in the mass effect. Dough which is fermented in bulk will cool down much more slowly which means that a lot of activity has time to take place. Conversely, when you cool the dough after shaping, not much happens in the retarder. So, yes, more time is good but it depends on how it is being used.
Also regarding the crust, when fermentation is done during proofing, you get a reddish color and a lot of blisters (due to the formation of microscopic chimneys through which bubbles of gas escape during baking). Blisters are considered undesirable in France where consumers treat them as the mark of a poorly made bread. By contrast, American consumers generally find them quite attractive. A matter of taste?

Rising to the Challenge: Bread Sculpture 2009

For Slow Food’s big weekend in San Francisco last year, the bakers at the San Francisco Baking Institute created the gigantic bread snail you can see here. This year they outdid themselves by recreating out of bread for the SF Chefs event not only the Golden Gate Bridge but the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma counties, the waters of the Pacific Ocean and the crabs for which San Francisco’s seafood restaurants are justly famous!
According to the SFBI team that designed and created the sculpture this year…

from left to right, Justine Maiorino, Juliette Leichuk, Michel Suas, Valerie Rogers,
Sydnee Kennedy, Safa Hamzé, Rocio Villanueva, Greg Mindel,
Laura Cronin, Frank Sally, Miyuki Togi

…1,053 pounds of live fermented bread dough went into its making. Three mega miches were baked that were so heavy (660 pounds total)…

…that a forklift was required to load and unload them. Two hundred bagels (38 pounds of dough) and 158 breadsticks (60 pounds) were used to make the bridge suspension cables.


Amber waves of baguettes recreated the swell of the Pacific…

…while 46 golden crabs (66 pounds) (sorry! no picture of them!), 8 sheathes of wheat (106 pounds) and a grape vine (18 pounds) hung with plump clusters of grapes suggested the vibrant food and wine culture of the Bay Area.

The flowers, leaves and grapes as well as the bridge panels and the fence were made of decorative dough (162 pounds) colored with paprika, beet powder, spinach powder and turmeric.

In addition, thirty miches (105 pounds) were baked to decorate the sculpture and illustrate the rich bread tradition of the San Francisco area.

“The hardest part was calculating the structure of the largest possible loaf that could hold its own weight when standing on its edge, without it getting stuck in the oven during the bake”, says the team.


The sculpture – which took 1 1/2 week to bake and build, planning and test bakes not included – was created at SFBI, then disassembled, loaded onto a flat bed truck…

…driven to Union Square, and reassembled on site.


SFBI President, Michel Suas, with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom

Dough Consistency



I came out of the recent Artisan III workshop with Didier Rosada at the San Francisco Baking Institute with the knowledge that it was much more useful for me to try and understand the processes used during the course of the week than to write down the exact mixing or fermenting times. Didier did his level best to get us to see that a dough isn’t necessary ready to be mixed on 2nd speed because we just spent 5 minutes mixing it on first speed.
Thus for each of the breads we made during the week, he gave us the mixing times as reference points, making it very clear that back home or at the bakery with a different mixer and in a different environment, they will most likely be different (and the same holds true for fermentation, proofing and baking times).
But what will NOT change and what we need to focus on is the required dough consistency and gluten development for each type of bread. So Didier always gave us these two elements of information first. For instance for the miches, he specified “Improved mix, Medium Soft”, for the spelt bread “Short Mix, Soft” and for the ciabatta that we were going to retard overnight in the cooler “Improved Mix, Soft +”.
On the last day, he mixed some flour and water to give us visual clues to the various dough consistencies. (Sorry for the unintended plug for the drug company in the above pictures. These stickers were all we had and we didn’t think of cutting away the name)
Dough consistency is sometimes confused with gluten development but they are two different things. Dough consistency has to do with the hydration rate (the amount of water the baker puts in the dough) while gluten development (ascertained through the windowpane test) is the degree to which the gluten chains are organized.
Controlling the strength of the dough is the main challenge for the baker. The more we mix, the finer the air pockets and the resulting crumb. But the less we mix, the weaker the dough. One solution is to mix less but to increase the fermentation time and to fold the dough once or twice (or more, as needed).
Folding however is not always an option. For instance, in a bakery where ciabattas are made on a large scale (say, 5,000 kg per day), it is impossible to fold the dough manually. A different approach is needed.
While the goal is to have a lot of free water in the dough (this free water holds multiple microcells of gas), too much water at the beginning would interfere with the gluten development and make the dough very weak. The dough is therefore first mixed to medium soft consistency (68 % water), then developed to improved. Then and only then the reserved water (usually 12 %) is added and the mixing resumes until the water completely incorporated (double hydration technique).
The added water coats the dough in such a way that it protects it from oxydation (which would decrease the flavor) and the resulting dough is very wet (soft +) but very strong because very developed. It can ferment in tubs for 2 or 3 hours and, without any folding, create big holes and have good volume.
At home or in a small bakery where folding isn’t an issue, you can aim for a short mix, add the reserved water and then resort to folding during the fermentation. In other words, for ciabatta, consistency is always soft or soft+ but gluten development can be either short or improved mix, depending on whether or not you plan to fold the dough during fermentation.

Ciabatta
(improved mix, double hydration, soft + consistency, no folds, retarded overnight in cooler)

Well, that’s it for today. I hope you will find helpful this short recap of what Didier tried to teach us. Stay tuned for more Artisan III tidbits!