Tuesday 30 August 2011

Nose to the grindstone

It was a long and busy day yesterday, but brilliant fun. I've been on a breadmaking course with Clive at Shipton Mill, learning new techniques and getting a better understanding of working with flour. He has a great perspective and depth of knowledge, and clearly enjoys sharing this with others, encouraging them and opening them to new ideas and ways of thinking. Six of us gathered at the mill in Frampton-on-Severn, and after a cup of tea off we went, grouped around a large wooden-topped bench and working separately on our own doughs.

To start the day, Clive handed round examples of breads that he'd made by different methods. It was lovely to see him slice them open to reveal the inside, then pass it round so that we could smell it and see and feel the texture. The variety and textures were brilliant to see and compare, and I'm sure I wasn't alone in aspiring to produce something that good as I followed with my eyes each loaf that I passed on.

We started our own baking with a white dough using a sponge (a basic white dough left to ferment and stored in the fridge). Clive referred to the ingredients using the baker's percentage (expressing each ingredient as a percentage of the mass of the flour used). I'd seen this used in various recipes but had found it strange and was reluctant to tackle it, so it was really helpful to see this approach in action. Although it requires a bit of mental agility, it frees you from a written recipe and makes it so much easier to scale your quantities. He also talked about taking control of the process and how you can adapt variables like temperature and added ferments and time to help you to do this.

Working this dough involved tearing it, using the heel of the hand to stretch it away along the bench, then rolling it back up again. This was very different to how I'd been working my dough at home but was easy to get the hang of and although I'd been concerned that it would feel like I wasn't incorporating enough air, the rolling back up was certainly doing this. Folding the dough was similar to what I'd learned before, but the moulding action was new to me - with hands flat on the bench, palms up, you bring them in close to each other at the base of the dough, sliding one away from you and one towards you, twisting the base of the dough - creating tension and a neat rounded form. With this dough we made a cottage loaf (my first ever), pittas and a plaited loaf (mine suffered a bit of a collision with the back of the oven as a consequence of some rather overenthusiastic peel wielding). The pittas cooked quickly and elicited oohs and aahs from the group peering through the oven door as our breads inflated beautifully before our very eyes. Pittas are the one bread I still buy in the shops - but not, I think, for much longer...

We made a soda bread with coarse brown flour, sunflower seeds, herbs and feta. These were the first out of the oven, and a collective swell of pride in the room was almost tangible, the results looked so good. Each had a cheeky little paper tag poking out of it to identify its creator. 'So that nobody can disown theirs, ' smiled Clive - but nobody wanted to disown any of them.

The next dough was a sweet dough for Chelsea buns, using a flying ferment to get things going so that the yeast had a chance against the retardant effects of the sugar and butter. This was very sticky work, mixing the ferment and the main dough by hand and squishing in the butter. The proud-o-meter in the room rose a notch or two when those beauties came out of the oven and we finished them off with a quick brush of runny icing.

Finally, we used an emulsifying method of preparing the non-flour ingredients for a sweet shortcrust pastry, producing a paste which could be handled and re-handled without danger of the water and gluten interacting. I think I might finally have found a way that I can make good pastry!

Lunch was a delicious sampling of the breads Clive had shown us first thing, allowing us to compare even more closely the texture, smell and taste. The rye with figs was extremely popular.

Included in the day was a tour of the mill, a fascinating journey from the testing done before a delivery of grain is accepted, to the final bagging and despatch of the sacks.

The last hands on operation before assembling our goodies and making our way home was the feeding of Clive's sourdough mothers - a white and a rye. Once they were snoring after a good feed, he generously gave us a portion of each to take home - so all my agonising about how to get one going for myself was completely unnecessary. Perversely, just before I left for the course, I saw that the starter I'd attempted had caught, and was bubbling happily. With three to juggle, I can see that I've got scope for a lot of experimentation over the next few months, and I'm starting to wonder what happens if you mate a couple...

I had a tiring but brilliant day, learned a huge amount about flour and how to work with it, enjoyed myself immensely, made bread that I'm very proud of, and was once again hugely impressed at how well a good kitchen works. Everything was to hand, used stuff was tidied away instantly, the bench was cleaned and tidied at every opportunity and it all just worked like clockwork. This was in no small way attributable to Washing-Up Fairy Lesley who not only washed and dried but kept us going with tea and lots of smiles.

As I drove home I reflected on the day and the very great pleasure that there is to be had in watching an expert doing what they love - the fluid, assured movements and handling of materials, the unhurried pace and the wonderful results. I loved, too, Clive's clear enjoyment in sharing with others and seeing them grow in confidence and skill.

Big thanks to Clive and Lesley and everyone else at the Mill for a fantastic day full of information, hard work and good humour which has left me happy and proud and with a head full of possibilities.












Lemon rolls

Actually, these are what Junior initially wanted when he looked through Dough, but we didn't have any lemons in, so the bagels were the next choice. Lemons are now in stock, so it's lemon roll time.

You just need a 500g-of-flour batch of standard white dough and a couple of lemons. As you get to the end of your time working your dough, zest the lemons (I used my 5-holes-on-the-end-of-a-handle-like-a-peeler's-got zester to get wider strips rather than a little pile of shavings type zester) and work the strips through the dough as you finish it off.

Leave the dough to rest as usual, then divide into balls and after a rest of a few minutes, shape into lemon-shaped rolls and leave to prove on a pleated couche. Transfer onto a floured peel, score the tops (if you're me, you'll do it horribly cack-handedly while retaining hopes that you'll get the hang of it one day) and bake for about ten minutes.

It was in the transfer from the couche to the peel that my little board came into its own - manipulating the little puffed-up rolls just by hand is hard to do right, but it's so easy to roll them onto the board, then roll them off the board onto the peel. Hooray for the board.

These rolls have a wonderful lemony scent and taste fabulous - I was amazed at how much difference the addition of a tiny amount of another ingredient made. I let myself into the Brazil Nut's empty house and left a few of them on the worktop for her (I normally do this with a fougasse or similar) and she loved them too. I'll definitely do these again.







Monday 29 August 2011

Flour Gallery

Or, a way of keeping track of what I've tried and with what results...


Enormous sack of Shipton Mill Baker's No. 1 flour. Fabulous stuff. Am making inroads into this sack at an alarming pace.

















The first wholemeal rye I bought - this is what I used (along with Wessex Mill French Bread Flour) to get my sourdough mother going.

















This is my favourite wholemeal flour (ok so it's only half and half) - it gives brilliant-textured and tasty results.


















I'm quite picky about seedy type flours, but I loved this one. It's wheat and barley flours, with malted barley flakes and linseeds.

















I picked this one up at the Organic Food Festival at Bristol harbourside. Not yet tried it.

















Another as yet untried purchase from the Organic Food Festival.



















Bought at the Eye Bread Festival, not yet tried.



















Got this one at Eye too - the fennel seeds sold me, though I've not yet taken it for a spin.


















Spotted this in Waitrose in Wantage - the smokiness sounds interesting although I can't quite imagine how it will turn out when I try it.

















Got this on my mill trip - I really fancy trying spelt sourdough but couldn't decide whether to go for white or wholemeal, so went for both...

















Another variety of wholemeal rye to try out


















White spelt for experimentation purposes...



















Large sack of light rye from Shipton Mill. I'm not sure why I got this, I think it seemed a good idea at the time but I don't use it very much...


















This was my bog standard white flour. It's cheap and gave good enough results - I used to buy a couple of bags a week. Over time I came to realise that I just wasn't happy with it - it contains an enhancing additive (ascorbic acid) which just isn't necessary if you're using good flour and handling the dough properly. My eureka moment was using Shipton Mill's Baker's No. 1 flour which is so much better and gives lovely silky dough and a brilliant texture to my loaves.

Sunday 28 August 2011

Using my loaf

It's for pulling out of the toaster and covering in butter and jam, it's on a side plate, it's there for dipping and nibbling while you choose what you're having, it's the bit that you hold and which holds the filling, it's for scooping up dips and for fiddling with during lulls in the conversation. It's always there, it's a quotidian object; its ubiquity makes it almost invisible.

The session during Richard Bertinet's course where we sat round listening before we got our hands dirty - Richard passed round a bagged sliced loaf bought that morning from a local supermarket, asking us to read out the ingredients, to touch and squish and smell the slices - really started me thinking. Richard, in the most drool-inducing manner described the experience of choosing some French bread in a boulangerie, squeezing it and feeling the crust yield with a gentle crack, breaking off the end and nibbling it. He then talked us through a bog standard sliced bread sandwich - no crust, no crunch, no anticipation, a wet mass sticking to the roof of your mouth, quick swallowing without much chewing. It all resonated very strongly.

I was aghast at the list of ingredients in tiny writing on that plastic bag. I couldn't stop my eyes straying from it to the water, yeast, salt and flour lined up on the worktop next to Richard, throwing all those extras into sharp relief. Never a big fan of the stuff, I would have pittas for my lunch, but I wasn't averse to sticking the odd slice in the toaster. I tried to think of another foodstuff that I'd happily eat knowing that it contained such things. I couldn't.

So why did we buy it every week? Why was running out of it a disaster to be avoided at all costs? I suppose a mixture of habit and convenience. I've not had a very happy relationship with food over the years, but divorce isn't really an option is it? Choosing better what to have a bad relationship with was starting to seem like a good idea. When Tallboy picked me up in the Circus after the course, the first thing I blurted out was that there were to be no more plastic wrapped supermarket sliced loaves. He wasn't convinced, but didn't want to pop my fresh-baked just-out-of-the-course bubble.

I talked to him about a crust that makes you actively chew, and a texture that is a pleasure to eat. I bored him with lists of ingredients. He surrendered. We haven't bought a loaf since the beginning of July. He comes home from work and tells me how much he enjoyed his sandwiches, how good they tasted, how enjoyable it was to eat them, how he actually noticed he was eating them. I've been actually eating bread rather than grabbing a quick slice of toast once in a blue moon. It's part of my daily food vocabulary.

And that's the thing - it's started to be food, not just something to put butter on, or an outside for a filling. It's nutrition, it's tasty, and I actually want to eat it and enjoy it. Every week I make different loaves so we're not stuck on a treadmill of sameness. And every week I make extras - bagels or rolls or fougasses - for us to enjoy. It's stopped being invisible, and it's started to be something we look forward to. It feels great to make something the boys love, and to take the odd little offering round to the Brazil Nut's. Notwithstanding my lameness with a lame and my tendency to over-prove and have catastrophic collapses unfolding before my horrified gaze, I am making good food that others love and I am proud of it. Running out isn't the disaster it used to be, either. I just make some more...

The bread with the hole

I've never really been a fan of bagels. I've always felt somehow cheated by them. Logistically too, they're difficult - get a bit overenthusiastic with the filling, and down it comes through the lack of bagel in the middle.

However, when I gave Junior the bread books and gave him free rein to choose an item for the baking session, he lit on bagels. So bagels it was.

It did catch me on the back foot rather, as you need fermented dough and I didn't have any, but fortunately the recipe provided for the last-minute bageler so after a quick 2 hour ferment I was ready to go.

The dough is very stiff to work (the Bertinet method works best for me with a sticky, more pliable dough). After a 20 minute rest, it was time to separate the dough into balls and form the bagel shapes. The recipe suggested creating the hole with a rolling pin, but the girth of mine would have meant all hole and no bagel so I improvised by sticking my thumb through the middle and hula-hooping the ring around to embiggen the hole to a satisfactory extent.

After proving, they need boiling for a bit. I was somewhat tentative about this step, dunking my dough in boiling water seemed rather extreme. I got a big pan boiling happily, then chucked them in three at a time. They bobbed on the surface, completely failing to melt or dissolve or otherwise dematerialise, even when flipped over. The recipe advises rolling the tops of the bagels in poppy seeds or similar after draining, but these clearly come under the heading of 'bits' and as such are on Junior's forbidden list.

The bagels took about ten minutes in the oven, and as they cooled on the rack I inspected them with a critical eye. They weren't particularly smooth or even but they had the right sort of shape, notwithstanding the lack of bagel part in the middle not being quite round in most cases. Once they were released for consumption, they were hailed as a triumph by the boys, were consumed rapidly, and placed on the 'do these again' list. I did have one, but my not getting bagels persists past my creation of my very own. The texture was right, and they tasted good - indeed, they were bagels. But I still don't get them.

Recipe: Bagels from Crust by Richard Bertinet





Sunday 21 August 2011

Mum's Sticky Black Gingerbread

This was a family favourite from as far back as I can recall. It has a wonderful deep rich smell as it's cooking, and a gorgeous gingery moistness when you eat it. The top is crispy with a hint of tackiness, and if you keep some of the gingerbread wrapped up in the parchment and sealed away from the air in a container or wrapped in foil, you'll be rewarded in a week or two with a glorious stickiness as it matures.

The original recipe is in old-fashioned units, I've added the metric approximations that Delia uses so hopefully they'll work!

Ingredients:

8 oz (225 g) black treacle

8 oz (225 g) butter

8 oz (225 g) soft brown sugar

2 beaten eggs

12 oz (350 g) plain flour

2 dsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch of salt

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

10 fl oz (275 ml) milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150 C. Line and grease a deep-sided tin approx 7" x 11" (18 x 28 cm) (ungreased parchment paper works fine).

2. Put treacle, butter and sugar into a saucepan. Stir over gentle heat until melted together, then remove from heat.

3. Beat eggs and stir into mixture. Sift flour, ginger, cinnamon and salt into mixture and stir in well.

4. Warm milk to blood heat. Put bicarb into a bowl and pour the milk over. Stir quickly and thoroughly into the saucepan, Pour mixture into tin.

5. Bake for 1 1/2 hours and cool tray on a wire rack.


When I'm making this gingerbread, I like to throw in some extra ginger if I've some handy - either chopped crystallised ginger, or freeze-dried work really well.



Saturday 20 August 2011

Today's batch

Today I've been making bread-for-the-week (basic white dough with a few handfuls of ground seeds chucked in), what-do-I-make-with-the-extra-bit-which-won't-fit-in-the-proving-basket, bagels (for the first time, at Junior's request) and mum's Sticky Black Gingerbread. Bagel-making writeup and SBG recipe will follow later...







Sunday 7 August 2011

These Poolish things...

Today I wanted to try something different, and Crust fell open on the recipe for baguettes with a poolish ferment, so I thought I'd have a bash at that. I mostly wanted to make a loaf, but there was plenty to make a large loaf, some baguettes and a handful of fougasses, which have become a staple nibble round here.

If I'd decided yesterday that I wanted to make a poolish ferment, I could have made it last night and stuck it in the fridge. But I only decided this morning, so made it when I got up and then had to wait for five hours until it was ready for use. The ferment used a tiny spot of yeast, white bread flour, water and a smidge of rye flour, which I was pleased to be able to use otherwise than for dusting my bannetons.

I made it in a glass bowl so that I could see the texture of it through the side - I'd have been better off making it in a larger bowl as I needed to decant it before I could use it, but the urge to see it was too great.

Over the course of the five hours on the worktop, the ferment rose substantially, and at the end was honeycombed with little bubbles, some of which had popped on the surface, giving a woodwormesque feel. Mixing in more flour, water and yeast, I had a substantial piece of dough which was just the right level of sticky, and really lovely to work with. After an hour and half's rise, I put a kilo and a half into my round banneton, made three 200g-ish baguettes, and fougasses with what was left.

I used a pleated couche for the baguettes, and it worked well - I'd been concerned that it might be wibbly wobbly but it kept its shape perfectly. The baguettes were much slower to rise than the loaf in the banneton - in fact I put the loaf in the oven first and they had an extra 35 minutes' proving.

The proved loaf was easy to turn out onto my metal peel, and looked gorgeous with the concentric circles traced in rye flour. I hovered over it with my lame, considering all sorts of patterns from the minimalist to the absurdly complex; in the end I went as minimalist as I could, and put my lame down unused. Those circles were just too pretty to mess up...

When it was time to transfer the baguettes, I congratulated myself in including this board in my BakeryBits order - it made it so easy to transfer them to my peel (the larger Tallboy one, if you're interested). I wielded my lame on all three, rather tentatively I'm afraid. I've realised I need to pierce the outer layer with a corner, then drag, but I was too shallow in my slicing so the splits weren't anything to write home about. My peel technique with the baguettes clearly needs some practice too - it was hard to get them onto the stone without rolling them over. Ideally I'd have slid them in end first, but the dimensions of my oven required otherwise.

The flavour of the bread itself was lovely, I could definitely detect a difference. I found the quantity of salt too high as the bread tastes salty to me - or maybe it's the way you have to sprinkle it over as you're working the dough some time after the mixing, perhaps I didn't incorporate it well enough. I wondered how much difference the ferment would make to the texture of the bread, and expected it to be much more irregular. There are little round holes, but nothing huge - certainly not like the illustration in the book. I'll clearly need to try this a few more times before I feel I've got it right.

The initial delay with the ferment was agonising - next time I'll be making it the night before. I am far too impatient a baker to have such gaps in the process; I'd much rather start and finish all in the one session.

The following images show the ferment all new and freshly mixed, then with its plastic bag hat on after five hours, then a look at the texture of the ferment, and finally the finished items.