Practice Makes......

Well maybe not perfect, but normally it makes edible samples.

After the success of my mince pie cookies,

for details see my other blog, I thought that it might be a good idea to practise the mincemeat teacakes, there's an advantage here as my neighbours can test them and we don't have? to eat them all ourselves. Hmmmm.

Anyhow, I use a flour mix from Wessex Mills that has Cinnamon and Dried Apple already in it, so it was just a case of making a sweet dough, using Golden Caster Sugar and Butter.

This went in to prove for 2 hours, meanwhile I prepared my mincemeat (measured 200g out)

Now its proved,

the two things need combining. Then scaling and rest,

They will rise whilst the oven heats up.

And here we are ready to bake,

20 minutes later,

 very nice.

By the way I have a week off now (a course for work) so I wont be posting, or baking till November 4th. See you then.

Rush Order

I deliver to Oats on Wednesday, and today (Monday) got a request for a n extra Spelt Sourdough loaf this week.

So I warmed Hortense up and took 120g, added  60g each of White Spelt flour and water and mixed.

After a few minutes the mixture was starting to bubble,

I left it for a couple of hours, then made it up to loaf quantities with Wholemeal Spelt, salt and water, gave it a bit of a knead and put it in the fridge overnight.

Next morning, it had grown slightly,

Time to leave it out, its now 24 hours to baking time.

Time to start the Ciabatta Rolls for Millie, no rest for the wicked!

While I was making the ferment, I could hear a faint popping noise, but couldn't work out where it was coming from. In the end I tracked it down to the sourdough, blowing air through the vent on the container, a good sign.

At midnight, when I returned from a rather excellent concert in Salisbury, (but thats a story for my other blog) it had reached this stage,

 so I put it in a banneton, after shaping, than at 6am transfered it to a tin for baking. The rise had gone, so I just hope it blooms in the oven.

and 45 minutes later, here we are, the smell is exquisite, I just hope the customer likes my version of the genre.

And here it is with its companions,

Off to deliver, and maybe a snooze.

Meet the Ladies

It's a quiet time for Well Bread at the moment, the summer rush is over and orders have tailed off a little.

However it will soon be time for the Christmas Specials that I have talked about before, and I have been gathering supplies in readiness. I need to do a couple of practise runs before I start in earnest, and have sorted out a delivery to Gravesend in November to test the waters.

We are off to Totnes Good Food Market tomorrow, so hopefully, I can get the last of my ingredients there.

Back to the reason for this post. I have two unsung heroes in my kitchen, who over the last couple of years have given me both joy and heartache. They require regular attention, but never complain as long as you keep them fed. You can't rush them, but they can be relied on

I refer to my sourdough starters, who I call Rula and Hortense, (well they are alive so naming them seems only right) and they live mainly in my fridge.  Of course I haven't put the names on the containers, people might start to wonder! But Rula is on the left.

Rula and Hortense

Rula

Hortense

Once a week I refresh them, which involves giving them a new supply of flour and water to feast on, of course this leads to a larger amount of starter every time, so  a plan needs to be in place to avoid wastage.

Now depending on which book or website you look at, the techniques for sourdough vary tremendously, initially, I was so confused that I almost didn't bother with sourdough, thinking that it was much to complicated, but the truth is that it's so simple, just as long as you ignore all the conflicting advice and just pick a single method. After all, sourdough has been around for a while, and seems to have survived as a way of baking.

Most of the conflicting advice is probably the result of regional differences, of course with the ease of communication today these are more easily spotted. And every method works on its own, I can see now that the problems arise if you start combining them.

So when I fed the starters yesterday, I first took about 200 of mix from each and combined them in a bowl.

I added Wholemeal flour and water to get a batch of dough, and a little salt, and gave it all a good stir. At this point it looks nothing like dough, but be patient, cover it and leave it in the kitchen overnight.

Next morning, there were bubbles,
 

and it looked good when I turned it out.

Now you stretch and fold it a couple of times, and you will feel it start to stiffen up. I don't propose to tell you how to do that, as its self explanatory, just remember to turn the dough 90 degrees after each fold. You will feel when it has tension, so shape it and put it in a tin for baking.

cover it again and leave it for at least 4 hours, this gives the ladies time to develop flavour and work their magic.

After 8 hours it had risen a little, I don't expect a huge rise with Spelt/Rye, but  the flavour of the close texture is worth it. You can see a few bubbles on the top, so the yeast is doing it's job.

So into the oven with steam for about 45 minutes and it was ready,

Now I have to be patient and let it cool a bit before I slice, pity you can't smell it, the house is full of the tang of sourdough. YUM!

I couldn't wait any longer, here is the crumb,

just had the end with butter, WOW!

A Quickie Part 2

I
 was in such a rush to post that I didn't put up a picture of the crumb on my no-knead loaf.

Sorted!

A Quickie!

Got back from work, (Real job) to find no bread in the house, I was really tired after a long overnight shift, so just threw the ingredients together for a no-knead white loaf and went to bed.

This morning, I finished it off and baked it, it crackled as it came out of the oven, I love that sound.

If you've never tried it, no-knead works brilliantly. I can give you a recipe, which works for me (see above). Or if there's anything else you knead? to know, just ask.

What can you Bake in 3 hours 45 minutes.

I used up my excess sourdough starters, making a rather nice overnight loaf.

But onto the real work.

Half past 5, and we're off, today we are making 2 Spelt tin loaves, 2 Soda Bread, 30 Onion seed Ciabatta and 24 American Biscuits

So in order

0535-0545 knead the spelt dough, and put in the oven to prove.

0610 Knead the Ciabatta dough, using the ferments I started yesterday. Leave to rise

0645 Shape the Spelt loaves, Oven on

0700 Make the biscuits, bake when the oven is warm.

0720 Make the Soda Bread, bake the Spelt and Soda Bread

0745 Shape the Ciabatta, leave to prove.

0810 Loaves cooked, start baking Ciabatta

0900 Baking finished, bag up for delivery

0915 Leave to deliver.

Simple?

Well here's the results.

Not a bad mornings work.

Rolls and Samples

As I said last time, I was trying the panini in a different shape for Oats customers to have with soup, and I think I cracked it,

They still look a bit artisan, unfortunately the pictures of them after cooking have vanished, never mind, I think you get the idea. And Sally liked them.

After lunch, the great sample experiment started. I have cooked the pesto bread before, so wasn't too worried about that, but the Turkey, Stuffing and Cranberry was a new one on me, as was the Mincemeat Teacake.

I used Paul Munseys excellent Apple and Cinnamon Flour as a base for the mincemeat Dough, its a variation on a sweet focaccia that I used to sell in Gravesend, so I was happy enough about that one, just making rolls instead of the flat loaf.

As you can see, they passed the test, Yvonne wanted another, but that would mean no samples to give to Millie tomorrow.

Cranberries and Stuffing were mixed before I made the dough,

and was added on top of the chopped turkey.

I then made spirals, as I love the form, and baked them like the others that I do.

Once again, astounding, if I do say so myself, and passed the Yvonne test with flying colours.

Lastly the Pesto loaf, same as last time.

Just have to do the toasting of the slices.

And here they are,

So we went down to Millie, hoping that the rain would hold off, and got there in the dry.

The first inspired idea (Thanks Yvonne) was to warm the Turkey roll up, and Sophie really enjoyed it. In fact she called it Christmas Lunch in one, or something similar. She wants some to sell from the end of November.

The bruschetta were next to sample, and also went down well. Would be nice with soup was the suggestion.

Then the teacake, which was toasted and buttered, and also put on the list to sell from the end of November. A customer spotted our tasting session and blagged a piece of the teacake, also pronouncing it delicious.

So a successful mornings work there, an order for next week and something to look forward to. I love my baking job.