Bread
Someone said they were interested in bread, so I am going to inflict this on everyone - with any luck a few hours hard thinking should enable me to master the intricacies of the LJ cut (if it doesn't work please tell me - thank you).
Anyway, I make my own sourdough bread. It started as a little experiment after a very nice trip to San Francisco last year where I gorged on delicious sourdough bread, but has since become a sad and worrying obsession. There are at least three reasons why I bake my own bread:
1. Supermarkets - the bread in supermarkets is nasty fluffy gooey peculiar stuff, some of it reminds me strongly of kitchen paper. I like my bread with bite, flavour and aroma, and modern bread making processes seem to have been designed specifically to eradicate these qualities. There is good artisan made bread available in lots of places esp. in London, but not where I live.
2. I'm a student - I spend most of my time procrastinating, and bread making is a fabulous way to procrastinate.
3. Dan Lepard - http://www.danlepard.com/ - who wrote The Handmade Loaf which is the best bread book ever.
(4. might be the Earth Mothery feelings I get when I take 4 lovely crusty loaves out of the oven, 5. might be neurotic environmentalist concern for buying local - the flour comes from a local windmill, 6. is certainly greed)
I started with Dan Lepards earlier book 'Baking with Passion' which is a great recipe book, but I feel it starts the wrong way round. The first chapter deals with making starters for sourdough breads, with all the crazy life creating processes that entails. It scared me a little, I felt I was made to be Igor not Doctor Frankenstein so I turned the pages. The cakes in Baking with Passion were great, and the meringues out of this world. I had a bit of a mishap with the pastry since I don’t have a food processor. Then I bit the bullet and had a go at one of the breads made with dried yeast. And it was great, the long slow rising and the high levels of moisture made a bread which was firm and chewy and full of flavour (and garlic). I burnt the top but it didn’t matter, The Fiance and I munched our way through two loaves of the stuff in two days. However, it took ages and I wasn’t sure I had the time to make this kind of bread often, we were about to get married which is the best way I know to use up all your spare time for months on end.
But the seed was planted and the next time I wanted some special bread I had a bash at the focaccia. This was better than any bread I had ever ever tasted. The Husband hid one of the loaves to ensure that he could have some too. It was chewy and had huge bubbles in the dough, and a slight oiliness which meant the bread could be eaten without butter at all. The rosemary infused the whole loaf and the salt on the crust pointed up the sweetness of the bread so that each mouthful tasted herby and sweet and salty and succulent. If you haven’t made focaccia I can post the recipe and then I recommend that you go straight out to the kitchen and make some right away, although once you have you will hate all the ersatz cakey, bland yukky focaccias in the shops for ever.
I’d seen the light, this Lepard chap knew what he was doing, and I was converted. The very next day I was mixing raisins into organic flour and having a bash at a San Francisco sourdough starter. The starter I made that day is still going strong, and is the closest thing The Husband and I have to pets or children (I know that’s very sad), he sits bubbling away in our fridge, excitedly getting fed every day or two. My mother has pointed out that raising a sourdough starter is not necessarily good preparation for parenthood because you can't store children in the freezer when you go on holiday. But I feel keeping Bob happy for as long as we have indicates higher levels of maturity and ability to take responsibility than anyone had suspected before now.
If you want to make your own Bob here's how...
Day 1
Take 200g organic raisins, 200ml organic apple juice (apparently you need to make sure that there are no pesticide residues at all in the batter in case that kills of the natural yeasts which you want to encourage to ferment - the scientists among you may feel the level of pesticides likely to be present are so small as to have a negligible impact), 400g wholemeal bread flour and 400ml water. Mix all the ingredients together, cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave in a warm place like an airing cupboard overnight.
The next day you should notice some small bubbles have formed on the surface indicating that fermentation has begun. If you can't see any sign of activity leave it a little while longer, make sure there is plenty of space for the mixture to expand, it sometimes overflows.
Once you notice the mixture is beginning to party, strain it througha colander into another bowl in order to remove the raisins which have now done their job of kickstarting the process. Then whisk in 150g of plain yoghurt and 150ml milk (I use semi-skimmed), stir until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined, then add 300g strong bread flour (white or wholemeal, or you can add a small proportion of rye - no more than 50g). Cover again and return to the warm place (doublecheck the bowl is big enough this is when the action starts).
The next day remove about 500-600g of the mixture and replace with more yoghurt, milk and flour. If things are going well and your starter is beginning to smell sour and have lots of bubbles it is probably time to transfer it to the fridge. Our Bob lives in a big tupperware box in the bottom of the fridge, a big Kilner jar works well too. This will slow down but not stop the fermentation. Once it has moved house, keep feeding it, initially at least once a day. Our starter only gets fed 2-3 times a week and he seems to thrive. If you go on holiday you can put the starter in the freezer, although it will probably revive if you leave it in the fridge unfed for up to a week.
It takes about a fortnight for the starter to develop interesting flavours, and the longer you keep the more complex the flavours become.
I make bread with our starter over two days.
The night before I take out 600g of Bob, feed him and put him back in the fridge. To this I add 800g of strong flour (white, wholemeal, up to 100g of rye) and 900ml of tepid water. I whisk it all together, cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave over night. The following day it has usually at least doubled in size. I then add 20g of salt and a further 800g of flour and any flavourings like caraway seeds, pumpkin seeds or dill weed. I stir it together, then knead for around 30 seconds (the mixture will be very wet), leave it for 10mins and knead again. In the break the flour absorbs some of the water that has been added and begins to stretch of its own accord, so this method reduces the amount of time you need to spend kneading over all. I then knead for another 2-3 minutes, leave, maybe knead a third time maybe not depending. I then leave it to rest for an hour, knead once more and leave to rest for a further hour. Finally I form it into 4 loaves (the Dan Lepard website mentioned above has instructions for this) and leave them to prove for up to 2 hours. I then bake the loaves at 10 minutes at 220 degrees centigrade, and then reduce the heat to 180 degrees centigrade and finish cooking them for a further 20-30 mins.
This is a hybrid recipe based on instructions in both of Dan Lepards books. It works for me although I would advise if this is the kind of thing you fancy doing to buy the books which are more informative than I could ever be.
Anyway, I make my own sourdough bread. It started as a little experiment after a very nice trip to San Francisco last year where I gorged on delicious sourdough bread, but has since become a sad and worrying obsession. There are at least three reasons why I bake my own bread:
1. Supermarkets - the bread in supermarkets is nasty fluffy gooey peculiar stuff, some of it reminds me strongly of kitchen paper. I like my bread with bite, flavour and aroma, and modern bread making processes seem to have been designed specifically to eradicate these qualities. There is good artisan made bread available in lots of places esp. in London, but not where I live.
2. I'm a student - I spend most of my time procrastinating, and bread making is a fabulous way to procrastinate.
3. Dan Lepard - http://www.danlepard.com/ - who wrote The Handmade Loaf which is the best bread book ever.
(4. might be the Earth Mothery feelings I get when I take 4 lovely crusty loaves out of the oven, 5. might be neurotic environmentalist concern for buying local - the flour comes from a local windmill, 6. is certainly greed)
I started with Dan Lepards earlier book 'Baking with Passion' which is a great recipe book, but I feel it starts the wrong way round. The first chapter deals with making starters for sourdough breads, with all the crazy life creating processes that entails. It scared me a little, I felt I was made to be Igor not Doctor Frankenstein so I turned the pages. The cakes in Baking with Passion were great, and the meringues out of this world. I had a bit of a mishap with the pastry since I don’t have a food processor. Then I bit the bullet and had a go at one of the breads made with dried yeast. And it was great, the long slow rising and the high levels of moisture made a bread which was firm and chewy and full of flavour (and garlic). I burnt the top but it didn’t matter, The Fiance and I munched our way through two loaves of the stuff in two days. However, it took ages and I wasn’t sure I had the time to make this kind of bread often, we were about to get married which is the best way I know to use up all your spare time for months on end.
But the seed was planted and the next time I wanted some special bread I had a bash at the focaccia. This was better than any bread I had ever ever tasted. The Husband hid one of the loaves to ensure that he could have some too. It was chewy and had huge bubbles in the dough, and a slight oiliness which meant the bread could be eaten without butter at all. The rosemary infused the whole loaf and the salt on the crust pointed up the sweetness of the bread so that each mouthful tasted herby and sweet and salty and succulent. If you haven’t made focaccia I can post the recipe and then I recommend that you go straight out to the kitchen and make some right away, although once you have you will hate all the ersatz cakey, bland yukky focaccias in the shops for ever.
I’d seen the light, this Lepard chap knew what he was doing, and I was converted. The very next day I was mixing raisins into organic flour and having a bash at a San Francisco sourdough starter. The starter I made that day is still going strong, and is the closest thing The Husband and I have to pets or children (I know that’s very sad), he sits bubbling away in our fridge, excitedly getting fed every day or two. My mother has pointed out that raising a sourdough starter is not necessarily good preparation for parenthood because you can't store children in the freezer when you go on holiday. But I feel keeping Bob happy for as long as we have indicates higher levels of maturity and ability to take responsibility than anyone had suspected before now.
If you want to make your own Bob here's how...
Day 1
Take 200g organic raisins, 200ml organic apple juice (apparently you need to make sure that there are no pesticide residues at all in the batter in case that kills of the natural yeasts which you want to encourage to ferment - the scientists among you may feel the level of pesticides likely to be present are so small as to have a negligible impact), 400g wholemeal bread flour and 400ml water. Mix all the ingredients together, cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave in a warm place like an airing cupboard overnight.
The next day you should notice some small bubbles have formed on the surface indicating that fermentation has begun. If you can't see any sign of activity leave it a little while longer, make sure there is plenty of space for the mixture to expand, it sometimes overflows.
Once you notice the mixture is beginning to party, strain it througha colander into another bowl in order to remove the raisins which have now done their job of kickstarting the process. Then whisk in 150g of plain yoghurt and 150ml milk (I use semi-skimmed), stir until all the ingredients are thoroughly combined, then add 300g strong bread flour (white or wholemeal, or you can add a small proportion of rye - no more than 50g). Cover again and return to the warm place (doublecheck the bowl is big enough this is when the action starts).
The next day remove about 500-600g of the mixture and replace with more yoghurt, milk and flour. If things are going well and your starter is beginning to smell sour and have lots of bubbles it is probably time to transfer it to the fridge. Our Bob lives in a big tupperware box in the bottom of the fridge, a big Kilner jar works well too. This will slow down but not stop the fermentation. Once it has moved house, keep feeding it, initially at least once a day. Our starter only gets fed 2-3 times a week and he seems to thrive. If you go on holiday you can put the starter in the freezer, although it will probably revive if you leave it in the fridge unfed for up to a week.
It takes about a fortnight for the starter to develop interesting flavours, and the longer you keep the more complex the flavours become.
I make bread with our starter over two days.
The night before I take out 600g of Bob, feed him and put him back in the fridge. To this I add 800g of strong flour (white, wholemeal, up to 100g of rye) and 900ml of tepid water. I whisk it all together, cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave over night. The following day it has usually at least doubled in size. I then add 20g of salt and a further 800g of flour and any flavourings like caraway seeds, pumpkin seeds or dill weed. I stir it together, then knead for around 30 seconds (the mixture will be very wet), leave it for 10mins and knead again. In the break the flour absorbs some of the water that has been added and begins to stretch of its own accord, so this method reduces the amount of time you need to spend kneading over all. I then knead for another 2-3 minutes, leave, maybe knead a third time maybe not depending. I then leave it to rest for an hour, knead once more and leave to rest for a further hour. Finally I form it into 4 loaves (the Dan Lepard website mentioned above has instructions for this) and leave them to prove for up to 2 hours. I then bake the loaves at 10 minutes at 220 degrees centigrade, and then reduce the heat to 180 degrees centigrade and finish cooking them for a further 20-30 mins.
This is a hybrid recipe based on instructions in both of Dan Lepards books. It works for me although I would advise if this is the kind of thing you fancy doing to buy the books which are more informative than I could ever be.