Dulce de leche must have been the first thing I made.  I went back to where I had posted on eGullet to see what I'd written - I'm including my post from there for your entertainment.

"Valuable lesson number 1 - RTFM - if you fail to RTFM you will not have discovered that the maximum capacity of the TM31 is 2 litres. Therefore you will take your standard dulce de leche recipe and break it in half and add 3 litres of milk plus 400 grams of sugar to the bowl. This - in combination with following the directions mentioned above - which has you use varoma heat (>100º C) and speed 5 - will result in a Mount Vesuvius like reaction . Not a good look for my counter. And of course I didn't know which buttons to bang first to turn it off.

But after splitting my remaining rescued batch (ie that which wasn't on the counter or the floor) and cooking for about 90 minutes or so at 100º C gave me a wonderful DDL quite painlessly.

I'm questioning whether I'll be able to use the Thermomix to make chewy caramel. I'm going to have to figure out the size of my batch. It's also going to require finding a way to insert a thermometer into the batch without hitting the blades. "

So you grind up a bar to make the powder?

Great work chocdoc - really interesting.  Love baguettes.  those loaves look wonderful and great crusts.

Have you ever tried ice cubes instead of water under the bread?  Not sure if it makes any difference and haven't scoured eG to see what the story is there.

I used to use ice cubes until I realized the dirty oven water was dripping down into the drawer under my wall oven.  But I will sometimes throw them into a pan in the oven.   

I fiddled the recipe a bit to make it thermomix compatible.  You'll notice that the preferment and the next stage are identical, but the preferment adds flavour that you don't otherwise get.  I'm linking to the website version for instructions on forming the loaves - and more information about the bread itself. 

Name of Recipe:Peter Reinhardt's French Bread
Number of People:3 baguettes
Ingredients:

Preferment
285 grams all purpose flour
210 grams water
1 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 tsp salt
Next stage
285 grams all purpose flour
210 grams water
1 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 tsp salt


Preparation:
Weigh water into bowl, sprinkle yeast over.  Set for 3 minutes at 37º C and  .  Weigh in flour and add salt.    for a couple of minutes.  Two options now - if you want to make the bread the same day, just leave the dough in the bowl for about 2 hours, until you see it double.  For even better flavour, remove to a container, leave at room temperature for about an hour, knock it down and place in fridge for up to 3 days. 

For next stage, dissolve the yeast in some of the water if you already have the preferment in the bowl, add remaining ingredients to TMX bowl along with the entire preferment and  for 2 or 3 minutes until nice and smooth.  Let rise in oiled container for about 2 hours, until doubled in bulk. 

Place a baking tile, or a baking sheet in the oven and preheat to 500º F.  Form your loaves as instructed on the site, let rise for 45 to 75 minutes (to 1 1/2 times the size), turn over onto cornmeal covered peel (or upside down cookie sheet), slash and slide the loaf off the peel or baking sheet onto the hot tile or sheet in the oven.  Turn the oven down to 450º F.   Either add about a cup of boiling water to a pan on the bottom rack, or spray water into the oven every minute for the first 3 minutes of the baking time.  Bake for about 30 minutes, turning the loaves a half turn after about 15 minutes. 


Photos:


Tips/Hints:
Click here for the online version

I lived in the Queen Charlottes for a couple of years - the Grauman Goose was the plane that flew in and out of there - when the weather permitted.  Amazing how often you were stuck.  Learned to live without fresh milk and fresh veggies for long periods of time when the barges couldn't get out to us.

Thanks for that - have to try it.  Guess you dropped the egg in fairly slowly to let it coagulate before dropping through the cracks?

Just kind of slipped it in to the slowly moving water.  Might have been better to have the TMX going  speed 3 to help round up the egg more, but there wasn't too many little egg strands thanks to the vinegar.   

Decided to try a more traditional poached egg in Thor today - was over visiting Sargo and she was working on english muffins - so got the idea that you could make all but the meat for eggs benedict in the TMX.

I heated water to line II with a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to 100C.  I had the internal basket in place.  With the TMX on  and about speed 2 I added the egg through the top from a cup I had broken it into.  I let it cook for about 4 minutes. 

Perfect poached egg. 

Cleaning the basket requires a thin knife or stiff brush, but it really took no time at all.