Monday 31 October 2011

Sometimes I don't make bread

Having promised home-made biscuits to a colleague at various times over the past few weeks, I've got to the point where I actually need to deliver. I asked him which flavour he likes best, and he said 'Erm, chocolate?'. So I took that on board and made orange short butter biscuits. With the intention of chocolatifying them later, honest. Then I relented a bit and my desire to make something from my new copy of Short and Sweet took over. I had to seek around a bit to find something that I could make with the ingredients I had in the cupboard, but came across Chocolate Walnut Cookies which are gluten free as they're made with cornflour. As a result I've enough biscuits and cookies to treat my whole team as well as the original colleague, including the wheat-free chum on my team who can indulge without worry. Huzzah!

For the cookies, instead of cocoa powder I used my favourite drinking chocolate, which is a mix of cocoa, sugar, cinnamon and cardamom. I don't know the exact proportions of cocoa and sugar so I guessed, and adjusted the sugar in the recipe accordingly.

For the orange biscuits, I used the method that Clive taught me to emulsify the butter and water first, along with the sugar. I then grated in the zest of a couple of oranges before adding the flour to make the paste. Because the liquid is safely trapped within the fat, handling the paste isn't an issue and you can roll and re-roll as much as you want. After a half hour rest, I rolled it, cut out the biscuits, and baked them for 15 minutes at 160 ° C (fan). I drizzled some chocolate over the top when they were cool.

The orange biscuits are beautifully short and orangey, and hopefully the chocolate will firm up enough for me to be able to transport them in the morning.

The cookies are amazing, they spread out wonderfully in the oven and retained a chewy interior while crisping up nicely on top.




Saturday 29 October 2011

Today's batch

Last weekend I realised that I needed to get a new sack of strong white flour as I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with the current one. During the week I called up Shipton Mill and paid for a fresh 25kg sack, then popped up to fetch it from Frampton during my lunch break on Friday. I wobbled upstairs with it over my shoulder when I got home and stashed it in the Flour Storage Area (spare spare bedroom). As I wrestled it into position, I tried to think how long I'd had the old one, but couldn't quite remember. It was only later, when I came across the first invoice, that I realised that I'd used up 25 whole kilos in the space of eight weeks. I know I've been a busy baker but this did surprise me. Let's see how long the new one lasts...

Today I decided to go for sourdough with a vengeance, making a couple of loaves from each of my three mothers. I also chose to try out a couple of new flours from my stash.

First dough was Peter Cook's recipe for a rye-ish sourdough loaf and which I've done before. I used some Wessex Mill wholemeal rye for the first time in this. The dough was quite firm and easy to work. As with all the loaves this time, I left them to prove free form on the worktop, no bannetons this week.

Second dough used a white sourdough mother with Bacheldre Mill oak smoked. I picked this one up out of interest and wasn't at all sure how it would come out and whether the smokiness would compete with the sourdoughness or whether they'd work together. I stinted a bit on the water for this one as I've become very wary of proved loaves collapsing on turning out/slashing and this doesn't seem to happen with less-hydrated doughs. However, I've lost my lovely holes too. I think I need to be brave enough to hydrate fully and take care not to over prove.

Third dough was another white sourdough mother with half Shipton Mill Baker's No. 1 (new sack vintage) and half Wessex Mill wholemeal spelt. Again I was a bit reticent with the water.

I left all the dough to bulk ferment for five hours, then proved for an hour and a half/two hours ten minutes depending on where they were in the queue for the oven. They all proved nicely and were easy to lift onto the peel, no collapsing today. I slashed each type of dough differently so that I could identify them with confidence afterwards, and today I was really pleased with the slashing, it came out really nicely.

I baked one loaf on the top shelf with two on the bottom, and to avoid too dark a crust I tried turning the heat down by ten degrees after fifteen or twenty minutes, turning the top loaf around by a hundred and eighty degrees as I did so. The top loaf still was much darker than the bottom ones both times, and the bottoms of all the loaves were quite soft. I don't know if this was because of the lowering of the temperature, or because I chucked a thick layer of semolina on the worktop when I left them proving so they wouldn't stick, and this got in the way of the dough making proper contact with the granite in the oven. More tweaking required...

As you'll see in the pictures, there were no proper sourdoughy holes in the loaves, so although they looked great on the outside (and they are yummy), there is still work to be done. And I'm not getting the temperature/length of bake quite right. I'd like them to be beautifully done but not so dark. I wonder is this the penalty you get with a fan oven?

The rye-ish one is delish - that recipe is a reliable one for producing a tasty loaf. The oaky smoky one tastes very smoky to me, but not at all to Tallboy. It's not an unpleasant taste, but it's a bit of a surprise. I think it would work best in a bread that you'd eat with some strong cheese or a hearty soup. The spelt loaf is very tasty indeed, although I chickened out and went down the half and half route. I'll have a go at a 100% one again at some point. Probably.

My day's work


Oaky smoky sourdough


Rye-ish sourdough


Half spelt, half not spelt sourdough

Friday 28 October 2011

Lepard print

A few days ago I spotted Dan Lepard tweeting that he'd be in Bath soon for an evening at Topping and Company (who put on loads of events with authors, well worth checking out). 'Hmmmm,' I thought. 'With Tallboy away and a long evening awaiting me in an empty house, this sounds like the perfect way to spend some time. Especially with the added bonus of seeing Tootles for dinner...' Tootles texted and Topping's ticket telephoned for, I was all sorted.

Expecting a nightmare with parking, I decided to park up high on the hill heading down from Lansdown. This would prevent the hideousness of getting closer to town without seeing any parking spaces, being swept up into the one way system, going round too far, swearing some, ending up in a remote car park with extortionate rates then having to walk several miles through badly lit hoody-infested streets. I adroitly avoided all of this by parking at the top of a steep incline, the pavement of which was littered with slippery leaves and the kerb of which was littered with multiple free parking spaces. All the way down. Still, the walk back up would warm me up nicely and hopefully go some way towards burning dinner off.

After a yummy dinner with Tootles (his turn to pay so it was even more delish) and a visit to the fabled Star, it was time to head towards Topping & Co. I was greeted at the door by the offer of wine, declined, followed rapidly by an Elderflower cordial appearing in my hand, and oaty cheesey biscuits and/or brownies. I wasn't sure if it was an alternative or cumulative offer so with only a moment's consideration, I took one of each and wandered further into the shop balancing glass, ticket and nibbles. It's OK, I didn't have pudding so I was allowed.

The other attendees were clearly more savvy and more punctual than I - picking my way through seated wine drinkers and brownie nibblers I had to take up station at the back, by the toilet. Dan joined us and sat in the middle, and started talking about his life and his baking. I could have listened all night to his gentle tone, conversational manner and slight accent along with the autobiographical, technical and philosophical content. I enjoyed hearing about his experiences in cooking and baking, what he has done and what he does now. I felt a glimmer of fellow-feeling when he described photographing his goodies in the front room by the window (although mine are carried in state to the back room for their close-ups).

I like Dan's approach to baking and his welcoming of mistakes as a way of learning. I found it refreshing to hear someone saying that their approach had changed over time as they had accepted that they might not have been right, or that there was a better way of doing things. His dialogue with the audience was great too - asking questions and interested in the responses. I asked how he felt about people using his researched and tested recipes: did he expect them to be followed slavishly or used as the basis of adaptation, or didn't he mind? His answer was most definite, he hoped that they'd be the basis of experimentation, addition and adjustment.

Sadly the evening was over all too soon. I joined the meandering queue for book signage, having splashed out on arrival on Short and Sweet which I'd been intending to buy anyway, honestly. I showed him a peek of this blog too, on my phone, then I was off on the long walk back to the car.

It had seemed such a good idea earlier, but now it was awfully dark and the road was about ten times steeper. My coat, originally zipped up against the cold foggy dampness, unzipped by rapid stages to allow the steam to escape as I zoomed up the hill. It only took fifteen minutes, but it felt longer - it felt, too, that I'd climbed further up than I'd gone along. I drove home through the hills and the fog, at one point encountering a big snuffly badger which fortunately had the sense to look both ways before crossing the road.

I'm very pleased with my new book, I have dipped a bit and will take a closer look over the next few days. My head is full of possibilities and plans, especially as there's a cake sale coming up at work. And Dan (if you do pop by) - hello, it was great to meet you.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Today's Batch

Having said that we had plenty of bread and that I didn't need to make any more, I then went ahead and made loads. I think I felt a bit sorry for my poor shunned mothers. Or something.

I got a bit of an itch to try tiger bread too. Though it looks reticulated to me, not stripy as such. Anyway, I did a lot of searching online until I found a recipe I liked the look of, then based things on that (it was here, in Sandra's Cookbook). I did without the sesame oil and just used the recipe for the topping rather than the bread itself. The topping is yeasted, and you have to leave it to mousse up while the dough is in bulk ferment. Once you stir the topping it falls back to a batter kind of consistency, which I applied half way through the prove. This bread was a big hit with the family and with the Brazil Nut who was the beneficiary of one of the three loaves.

Peg got back from the States a few days ago and ordered me to make her a caraway seeded sourdough. And it was mum's birthday, and not able to think what to get her, I decided to make her a stollen. And then there were other sourdoughs to make while I was feeding my mothers...

I decided to do a feed before bedtime and an ambient bulk fermentation, but because I was a bit more organised than last week I fed the mothers nice and early so that I was able to start baking at 8 and didn't spend the whole day at it.

The normal sourdough was mostly white flour with the end of a packet of Half and Half in it. I held the water back a bit too, because dough I've made with that mother in the past has always turned out too loose.

The caraway seed sourdough was from a recipe in Andrew Whitley's book - it used a rye mother, some white rye flour, some Half and Half and some white bread flour. The smell was amazing and I couldn't wait to cut into the bread to see its texture but as it was for someone else I had to restrain myself. But I took my camera to her house so that I could sneak a snap if she started on it while I was there. She did, and I got a taste too - delish and definitely a do-it-again!

The stollen was another of Andrew's recipes, and I spent most of the time referring back to the recipe to convince myself that I'd used the right amount of ingredients as the lump of dough seemed pitifully small. It was right, and it all turned out right in the end, even though I didn't have any ground almonds. I did have some flaked almonds and a coffee grinder which only smelled a bit of curry spices. The marzipan was pretty sticky but this seemed to work well within the stollen as it merged into the adjacent dough. I soaked the fruit overnight in a combination of Cointreau and cherry liqueur which worked really nicely, and I substituted dried apricots for the candied peel he specifies. There's something horrid about candied peel, I'm ok if I know it's there and can pick it out, but if it catches me by surprise it renders every subsequent mouthful a) a minefield and b) tainted anyway by that ghastly, pervasive and revolting taste. The recipe didn't call for any spice and was very nice without, but I might be tempted to add a spot next time.

I clearly still need a bit of help with my slashing and shaping. The white sourdough was a much firmer dough than usual and I was far happier with it. It rose nicely in the banneton and turned out without deflation. I made several slashes along the top but only in one direction, which I think was my undoing. The boule I made from the rest of the dough I slashed in a a curved spoke type manner but I did it half way during proving which I think was a mistake. The top of the loaf looks lovely but sadly the slashes didn't allow enough escape and the loaf suffered a tectonic consequence...

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr




Hmmmmmmmm...


White sourdough




Rye caraway seed sourdough




Lovely peel-free stollen



Saturday 15 October 2011

Today's Batch

Another mixed bag this time, with plenty of long time development as well as the quickest of all the breads.

I wanted to try sourdough left to bulk ferment at ambient temperature rather than the overnight in the fridge stuff I've been making for convenience - feed it Friday morning, make and work dough Friday night, leave it in the fridge and all ready Saturday morning for the baking session, early start. I found that leaving it overnight meant I couldn't keep a little eye on it to see if it were happy, and that my 1000g of flour dough was crawling out of the bowls by morning. The dough was also pretty stringy which felt strange.

My recipe suggests more sourdough mother for ambient bulk fermentation than for overnight in the fridge, so I've had to remember to keep them well fed. I fed them all on Friday night so they'd be ready on Saturday morning, but only remembered to do it very late so it was half ten in the morning before I could even make my dough. The rye based mother had been very vigorous but the white one seemed quite sluggish. I could have left it a bit longer but this would have shunted the end of baking to a late late finish so I just went for it.

Part of the reason why the feeding of the three hungry mothers was so late was because I was making up the brioche dough that I had promised Junior I'd do two weeks ago. Once I'd checked the recipe I could see that it required a very long bulk fermentation so promised him I'd do it when he was here again. Once worked, the dough required a two hour rest, followed by a fold and then a 14 hour session in a cool place. It spent the night and the next morning in the garage with the motorbikes.

In the morning, I whipped up a batch of Half and Half dough for tins. I set a bowl of strong white dough to one side to use for pinch back because I'm very good at remembering to put it in and terrible at remembering to take it back at the end - now I have some chunks living in the freezer. I used the rye mother with 80% strong white and 20% white rye, and the white mother with added ground seeds for seeds and good stuff. The white mother dough continued the sluggishness, not having made it to the top of the bowl after 4 hours, while the rye mother dough was threatening to waterfall over the edge. Again not wanting to string out the finish time, I used the white dough even though I suppose I could usefully have left it for longer. It would have thrown out the timetable a fair old bit to have done that, so I chose not to.

I realise during the sourdough bulk fermentation that I'd not made any dough for pittas, and that my lunches would be severely lacking next week if I didn't make any, so I made some quickly using strong white flour and a mill of salt with herbes de Provence for a spot of extra flavour. I had learned a lesson during a previous session where I was in the middle of a batch of pittas, which had to go in, but which delayed the bake for some tin loaves, which overproved - so I was keen to get them sorted in a quiet spot during the day (and the long bulk fermentation for the sourdoughs did afford me the kind of gap I needed).

I wasn't totally sure of the amount of brioche dough I needed for my large from-France birthday present brioche mould, so I guessed. I made a mistake of putting some in first, then putting the rest on top, as there was a distinct line around the finished brioche. I overfilled the mould a little bit so had to put it in to bake after two hours' proving rather than the hour and a half's proving recommended in the recipe. I found the bobble bit hard to get right too, it looks a spot depressed in the finished article. The egg wash was in fact one egg with a pinch of salt, which I was supposed to whisk up an hour before use. I was too busy and forgot, so the wash was a bit thick and eggy (although the chaps don't seem to mind). When I looked at the remains of the egg wash some time later, I could see that it had thinned dramatically and would have been much better in that form. I'll remember for next time. Probably.

I'm still getting used to my four way digital timer (which is brilliant) so I managed to muck up the proving time for the tin loaves. I gave them half an hour and they hadn't done much so was tempted to give them a bit longer. Goodness knows how long I actually put on the timer - but when I came to slash them they sagged in the most dispirited manner.

The sourdoughs acted as expected in the bannetons - the rye one zoomed up nicely but the white/seeded one was slow slow sluggish slow. The white/seeded one had a super amount of oven spring so it wasn't all dreadful. I still can't get the slashing right through!

With the sourdoughs, the texture is coming out more like normal bread, and most unlike the arrangement of holes held together by a spot of bread that some of my earlier experiments produced. Maybe the stringier dough produced by the overnight bulk fermentation is more what is required? They still taste brilliant though, whatever the texture.

Pittas



Brown tin loaves



Brioche (contains ~one million eggs)





White seeded sourdough



White rye sourdough

Wednesday 12 October 2011

Today's batch

Owing to the technical difficulty of not having enough hours in the day, this is actually Saturday's batch, but I like the 'Today's batch' title so it stays...

Today I was mainly experimenting with new flours.

For the tin loaves, I chose the Doves Farm Kamut flour and used it in a 1:1 ratio with Shipton Mill Baker's No. 1 flour (I am having to lean right down into the sack now). I wasn't totally confident to go with 100% Kamut, but was interested to see what difference it made with flavour, texture, rise and so on. I didn't increase my normal amount of water, and kneaded in 200g of pinch back (pinchback?) which I'd remembered to keep back from my last batch. Sadly, it was only after the tins were in the oven that I remembered I needed to take some back for next time...

The loaves proved beautifully and after 25 minutes in the oven came out very nice, with an attractive golden colour, an excellent texture and a less pronounced flavour than I'd anticipated (perhaps down to the dilution with white flour).

I did two sourdoughs, one with white spelt flour and one with white bread flour. I used my homegrown mother for the spelt loaf, and a combination of my homegrown mother (of which it turned out there wasn't quite enough) and Clive's rye mother for the plain white. Not having used spelt before, I tweeted for help and got some good advice from seasoned baking types: "keep dough softer than you think it should be" said @HobbsHouse. Peter Cook @pricesthebakers suggested "Don't leave it too long before baking. It doesn't have much oven-spring" and Richard Bertinet @BertinetKitchen even had a pointer to a recipe " use the recipe in Crust and replace the yeast with ferment 250gr per kg flour".

As it happened, I had Crust open in front of me on the spelt bread page. It used a poolish and then some extra fresh yeast, so I could rule out the fresh yeast but debated with myself about the poolish (which had quite a bit of water in it). I reckoned that it wouldn't be a proper sourdough with a poolish so ruled that out too. But this only left 150g water per 500g spelt flour which made for a pretty solid dough and not the soft dough I'd been primed for. I wibbled and added another 100g of water which slackened it a little but I was still left with a fairly solid lump. I decided to go ahead with what I had rather than dribble more and more water in - at least I'd have a reference point for next time. After working, the dough was lovely and smooth and silky, but sat in its bowl for a bulk ferment was rather sulky and didn't do much at all. I proved it in the long banneton and it did decide to rise a fair bit, but it was over 3 hours before I was happy with it going into the oven.

So, in short, I managed to go against the advice of each of the helpful people who know exactly what they are talking about.

The finished loaf was very tasty, but with a dense crumb and an immense crust - I feared for Tallboy's teeth. I think I undercooked it by about 5 minutes too, giving it 38 mins at 230.

I was very interested in how the sourdough with the two mothers would work - I had visions of the mothers fighting each other to the detriment of the loaf, but they seemed to complement each other well. The oven spring was astonishing, with the smaller boule-ish loaf developing almost a pyramidical shape which I was convinced was simply top crust over a gaping cavity, but which turned out to be all bread. Vigorous, feisty bread. The crumb in both loaves was quite non-sourdoughish, much more even than I've had before, which felt strange. I've come to expect some nice holes in there (without going to the extremes of Swiss Cheese impressions).

Anyway, it's all been eaten now, which I suppose is the main test. I want to try spelt again, and this time I will try to listen carefully and follow good advice. Honest. Oh, and I've been trialling a way of keeping good records of my batches so that I can refer back and tweak them. But more of that another time...

Golden Kamut loaves




A very solid spelt loaf (background colour and worktop material changes down to technical difficulties with the back room not actually being light enough as the nights draw in...)




My mixed mother sourdoughs (experiencing the same lighting issues)





Friday 7 October 2011

Today's batch

Just a single bake today, I couldn't wait to make the unfed sourdough pretzels again. This time I did it without yogurt (which last time I substituted for the milk powder the recipe called for) or any other milky thing and this produced a much stiffer, denser dough which had a harder crust even though it was baked for the same length of time. I used the smoked salt this time instead of the normal Cornish sea salt.

The dough was much easier to handle and shape, and I was much happier with the look of the pretzels, but the taste and texture weren't as good as last time. It was pointed out to me that sourdough purists wouldn't agree with using another sour type flavouring as well in the recipe, so I gave it a go without the yogurt. I'm now clear that there is a need for something milky in the dough, and I liked the flavour and texture outcome last time so I am going to carry on with that recipe because milk powder just makes me feel sad.

I think if I make these for Halloween I'll be tempted to call them undead sourdough pretzels rather than unfed sourdough pretzels...