starting again

final prove

I haven't baked bread for six months - moved to a temporary house with a bad oven., then moved to new house with no oven. At last, new oven has arrived and a new starter is being put into production. These are my first loaves for six months, and the dough is not quite right I don't think ... Perhaps it's my baking mojo and perhaps I need a little time to get it back. I am looking forward to testing my new oven and baking some really delicious-looking breads from Bourke Street Bakery.

Whilst waiting for these loaves to prove, I've been re-reading Bourke Street Bakery and realised I have been repeatedly making mistakes in the past. I've used strong white bread flour instead of organic stoneground and I haven't been dissolving the yeast in some warm water before making the sourdough dough. After today, when I start the new starter, I'll use organic stoneground flour which is what they suggest and as they say in the book, if one is going to go to the trouble of making a sourdough starter, then getting hold of the best possible flour is logical.

Today's flour used is a strong white bread flour from Allinson and it's been fine in the past.

In the meantime, this bread will probably be quite OK. The recipe is for a semi-sourdough which uses yeast as well as starter and plain flour. And my old nemesis of not reading a recipe properly has come back to bite me again. Up until now, I have thrown the dry active yeast, salt and water in with the flour and starter. I really should have been putting the yeast in 10% of warmed water first.

But having proved and baked my semi-sourdough, it rose much more than I expected -

merger

It'll be interesting to see this cut tomorrow. But at least I now have proper bread. Honestly, I vow to NEVER have that commercial crap in my house again.

And the new oven is great. It is gas and I could not be happier. I have always had to cook with an electric oven, fan-forced or not, and I have to say that I never want to cook with electricity again.

From now on, things are looking up.

lunch today

quickest tastiest lunch

This is a great combo.

Sourdough toast, toasted rye bread, toasted bagel, Ryvita, Krispy roll, any crispbread etc.
half a mashed avocado
sliced tomato
finely sliced red onion or spring onion
torn basil leaves
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper


Looks boring, tastes fantastic.

Try it.

Hot cross buns for Good Friday.

Despite the date above, today is Holy Thursday (17 April ), the day of The Last Supper, and I made Hot Cross Buns for tomorrow.

When I was growing up we only ever had hot cross buns on Good Friday. This was in remembrance of Jesus who died on the cross that day, was buried and who then rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. Good Friday was a sacred feast day, and the only day we ever ate hot cross buns in our house. They were ordered about a week before, then had to be bought from the bakery on Holy Thursday because not one shop was ever open on Good Friday. No one worked on that day.

Leonardo da Vinci's, The Last Supper. on Holy Thursday

Making your own Hot Cross Buns really is far, far better than anything you can buy at the supermarket or even your local bakery. You also have the added satisfaction of creating a sweet bread dough, watching it prove and smelling the heavenly aroma of yeast and cinnamon whilst they bake, only to devour them hot out of the oven with 'lashings of butter' as the great Clarissa Dickson Wright would say ... oh how can you resist??

To start off, you probably have most of the ingredients already in your cupboard anyway, with the addition of orange zest, one apple, some sultanas and mixed peel. I bought Italian lemon peel and it was a very good addition.

Basically, milk is warmed and then taken off the heat to cool. Strong white bread flour, yeast, and butter are mixed in then the warm milk added to form a stiff, sticky dough.

Then the sultanas, chopped apple (mine was a bit too big), and peel are incorporated into the dough to form a cohesive lump, which should then be kneaded for approximately five minutes.

After this, the dough should rest for one hour.

having proved for one hour, the dough rises

After an hour, divide the dough into twelve balls making sure the dough is smooth on top by gathering it underneath, thereby stretching the dough on top. Leave these on a baking tray lined with parchment paper for another hour of proving.

After another hour, the buns need to be finished off with a cross (to represent the cross of Christ), for Good Friday. Form a smooth paste of flour and some water and put into a piping bag with a fine nozzle tip for piping

flour and water paste, piped into crosses on the buns

Once piped, they're ready for the oven. 350 deg C for approx 30-35 mins.

buns ready for baking

Then out of the oven, brush with a glaze of warm sieved apricot jam.

straight from the oven

Now all we have to do is wait until tomorrow to eat them. But this is no problem because they freeze well and reheat beautifully.

See if you can give this a go for Good Friday. Absolutely worth the time, and a pleasure to make too.

Recipe from Paul Hollywood, The Great British Bake Off, 2013, BBC Food.

Ingredients:
300ml whole milk
500g strong white flour
75g caster sugar
1 tsp salt
50g butter
1 egg beaten
150g sultanas
80g mixed peel
1 apple, cored & chopped SMALL (not like mine, too big)
2 oranges, zest only
2 tsp ground cinnamon

For Cross:
75g plain flour + extra for dusting

For Glaze:
3 tbsp apricot jam, warmed and sieved.

sticky nougat

I adore nougat, never buy it for myself and after heavy hinting at Christmas and birthdays, I only ever get Callard & Bowser's nougat (because that's the one I love and it comes in lovely blue and white packaging) about once a year. But I digress.

To make my very own nougat I stuck to what flavours I like so I used toasted almonds and some dried cranberries. And I mistakingly departed from the recipe and put vanilla seeds into the sugar syrup mixture instead of using a whole vanilla pod which has to be fished out after the mixture boils. No matter, I loved the end taste result.


Here are the ingredients I used:

These are the stages:
1. toast whole almonds (not shown) in oven.

2. heat honey.

3. heat & boil sugar, vanilla pod, golden syrup, water.

4. add warm honey to boiled syrup mixture.
5. have egg whites, cream of tartar and sugar on high whisk and slowly pour hot syrup mixture onto whipping
    whites.
6. marvel at the volume of the mixture!

when done,
7. add warm almonds and cranberries.

8. spread mixture into tin.

9. cover with baking paper and flatten out.

10. cut before mixture goes cold.

but this is the best I could do. As you can see, the nougat had not set sufficiently to cut into clean squares and I put this down to the temperature and humidity of the kitchen ...

This is only a rental house and the heating/moisture in the house is awful. It is cold and damp.

So I will try the recipe again in my new house (yay!) and see if I can't make perfect nougat.

I absolutely loved this challenge and hope to try another flavour combo.

Thank you Rebecca of BakeNQuilt for hosting this challenge.

Blog-checking lines: The March 2014 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Rebecca of BakeNQuilt. She challenged us to learn to make classic nougat and to make it our own with our choice of flavors and add-ins.

Happy Valentine's day

If it's Valentine's Day, then it has to be red. And if it's red, it has to be Red Velvet Cake.

This rich and luscious cake was made for love, so what better excuse did I need?

The buttercream, the cocoa in the sponge, the utter indulgence of three layers of cake!

Need I say more?

Tibetan steamed dumplings

Tibetan steamed dumplings
Rick Stein's India, In search Of The Perfect Curry
Recipes From My Indian Odyssey

Rick Stein's cookbooks are good value, every time. His enthusiasm for the country he is in as well as the food he discovers and recreates in the books, makes them part-fascinating travelogue along with the added bonus of tempting recipes galore.

Lucky us. We may not be able to travel to India but we surely get a taste of Rick's travels there.




Tibetan dumplings, ready for steaming (I think these somehow look like little monks all huddled together).

These dumplings were delicious. Easy as pie to make (actually easier than pie), they are really wonderful with the Tibetan chilli dipping sauce, also quick to knock up.

The dough is perfectly straight-forward and takes no longer than three minutes to make. While it rests for ten minutes, lamb mince, onion and ginger are combined in a bowl and when the dough is cut into 16 pieces and rolled out, the lamb is placed into the half-circle middle and the dough edges are pinched together, rather like ravioli.





dough is rolled out, lamb mince placed inside and made into dumplings

The only thing needed to make them divine to eat (and it was the Tibetan monks with whom Rick ate these) was a quick and fiery Tibetan dipping sauce made using chillies, garlic, rice wine-vinegar and oil. You can see it on the right, above.

Unfortunately, these dumplings are rather like making pancakes ... make sure you don't tell anyone you're making them until you've finished cooking. Like making pancakes, you might find they get eaten as soon as you lift them out of the pan, which means you can't make them fast enough to sit down and enjoy them with everyone else!

Tibetan steamed dumplings
Rick Stein's India, In Search of the Perfect Curry, Recipes from my Indian Odyssey
Rick Stein, BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing, Random House Group, 2013

Scones

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge was to re-make or make-anew a recipe from one of the many previous challenges. I chose the scones from January 2012, never having made them for a Daring  challenge before.

A deceptively simple recipe, scones do not always readily come out as the light and fluffy versions that I remember my grandmothers and mother used to make. And each batch I've ever made seems to be a bit different.

Plain flour, baking powder, salt, cold butter and cold milk are mixed lightly together to meld into a dough. The least amount of mixing and handling with your hands, the better.

The dough is gently patted out flat so that the scone cutter can be used to make clean-edged scone shapes which helps them rise.

These are put onto a well greased baking sheet or parchment paper and cooked for 20 minutes or until golden.

hot out of the oven ...

The best part is breaking apart the warm, steaming scones and then covering the with lashings of cream and sweet strawberry jam - the simplest yet most elegant of accompaniments. 

And of course, a scone without a proper cup of tea is not a proper scone!

To be eaten smothered in jam and cream 

Henley Royal Regatta picnic

deck chairs ready for spectators, right on the river

Henley Royal Regatta. This 5-day rowing event has been held annually since 1839 and for those unaware of Henley, you might think it is just another rowing day on an expanse of river with home crews competing against each other, but it is not. This very special rowing event draws crews from around the world who look forward to meeting old international rivals, in a very traditional English setting, at the very traditional time of the English summer. It is rather like going to Wimbledon, and attracts not only the competitors and lovers of the sport but also people who come purely to take part in something very English. Dress code for the Stewards' Enclosure is strict - ladies must wear dresses/skirts below the knee (absolutely no trousers allowed) and men must wear suitable jacket and tie.

the last few metres of the 2-mile course.

scoring notification - how it has always been done

 

Henley is the only regatta which operates a two-lane knock out draw, racing in heats. Only two crews row at any one time as the width of the Thames is narrow here but what it lacks in width is made up for in length. The Thames is the longest river entirely in England with a total length of 215 miles (346 km). At Henley, it is the only natural 2-mile straight stretch of the river's entire course. The rowing course is actually 112 metres longer than the standard international course of 2000 metres, but that doesn't matter. HRR has its own rules, and is not governed by international standards, but is still recognised by both the British and International Rowing federations. There are 20 events covering 6 classes of race from single sculls to eights.

For rowers Henley is prestigious. For non-rowers, it's a great day out to pose in one's regatta finery.

A lot of women look like they're at Ascot, but I thought this woman looked beautiful.

But to food lovers, Henley is all about The Picnic.

After the morning racing, (and if you are not lunching here):

you can go back to your Rolls or classic vintage car where you have parked nearby in grassy car parks. There's plenty of room between the rows of cars to allow for owners to spread out picnic tables, umbrellas, chairs and in some cases, candelabras (!) and table settings to enjoy luncheon from 12.30pm - 2.00pm, at which time all races are suspended. Pimm's is the drink of the day and delicious food is always expected.


(notice the Veuve Clicquot)

So today with our Bollinger and Pimm's we had smoked salmon sandwiches, ham & grain mustard sandwiches, quiche, rocket salad, chipolatas, humus, breadsticks, vegetables and to finish strawberries, cream. For afternoon tea we had fruit cake with a cup of tea.

To me, Henley is all about the picnic.

cheesecake

family recipe

So I decided to make a cheesecake. And it turned out like this:

When you have a favourite recipe, nothing else will do. In this particular case, my Dad's is the best I know. The ingredients are these:

crushed Nice biscuits with melted butter

 

First off, you must prepare the biscuit base. This is the most tedious part but once it is done, the rest is quick and simple. Leave the butter to melt whilst crushing the biscuits by placing them inside a plastic bag then bash with a wooden rolling pin (quite therapeutic).

 

Place the biscuits into a bowl and add the melted butter and mix thoroughly.

 

Line a spring form tin with the mixture, first using a spoon to spread and then a flat-bottomed glass to help the mixture firm up. The straight sides of the glass help especially when forming up the sides of the tin. This can be a pain if you're in a hurry - so don't make it if you're in a hurry! This is also quite therapeutic

 

 

These are the other ingredients:

Philadelphia cream cheese, sugar, eggs, lemon juice and vanilla extract

The Philadelphia (full-fat) cream cheese and sugar are beaten with 3 eggs, some vanilla and lemon juice.

 

 

Then pour into your prepared biscuit base:

 

 

smooth out:

 

 

then bake, 180 deg C (350 deg F) for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven. Mine took 35.

 

And, here it is. 

 

Leaving it to cool at around midnight, I went out to get my daughter who had been babysitting. Of course, we came home to smells of freshly baked cheesecake were too irresistible, and against all my protestations, a hungry babysitter could not resist a small slice before it had even cooled properly.

 

Nevertheless, here it is this morning, having been refrigerated overnight. And it tastes great fridge cold.

 

 

 

 

Doesn't it look good? It was!



semi-sourdough



semi-sourdough

Bourke Street Bakery

Paul Allam & David McGuinness

 

 

 

semi-sourdough, with brown flour

Today I made a semi-sourdough bread. It has a light sourdough flavour but it does not need the overnight retarding because yeast is added. The recipe for this loaf says white, but I had no white flour left so I just used brown flour, and it worked really well which makes this basic recipe very versatile.

white starter
 

To 540g of white starter, 680g of brown plain flour was added, along with 5g of dry yeast, 275ml water and 12g of sea salt. These were combined slowly for about 4 minutes and then on a higher speed for about 5 minutes.

The resulting dough was smooth and elastic, and left to prove, covered with plastic:

Dough ready for covering with film and proving for one hour.
 

Here's what it looked like after one hour:

It was then knocked back:

and left to proved, covered with plastic, for another hour.

The dough was then ready to be divided into 3 x 500g balls, then rested for 20 mins.

I didn't have the required small loaf tins, so I just used my ordinary enamel dishes, and they worked well. I only had two so had one loaf left over which I put into my normal loaf tin.

Then these were put into the fridge for one hour. The loaves were removed from the fridge and left for a further 1.5 hours until each loaf had grown in size by two-thirds. In the meantime, the oven was turned on to 200 deg C.

The loaves were put into the oven, spraying it with water before closing the door.
After 20 mins, the loaves were turned around in the oven and then baked for a further 10 minutes.

Here they are, straight out of the oven. I haven't noticed this with other loaves, but the crust continued to make cracking sound for about five minutes after they came out of the oven. Is this the normal result of a good crust, I wonder?

PS 17/10/13:
Baking from this book is a dream. I go back to it time and time again, and this loaf has become our everyday loaf. I now use most of the dough for a larger loaf, for the above dark tin, and the rest I make into a baguette and generally freeze it soon after it has cooled. I now have a stack in the freezer and it is wonderful for pulling out on the weekends for lunch.

If you can afford it, buy this book. I doubt you will need another.

I was really pleased with this loaf. It was lighter than the sourdough loaf, but retained the chewy crust. I am especially pleased with the substitute brown flour instead of white. I really had a lovely flavour.

brown semi-sourdough, very light and delicious nutty flavour