Back in Business

After my visit to the doctors today, I'm happy to announce that normal service will be resumed from March 4th. So I'm out with the order book, pickling up where I left off.

Oats had the samples of the Sourdough Caraway Rolls and I'm hopeful that they will be a new line, I know Millie need more Panini so there's a bit of potential, I'm sure that the old favourites will stand me in good stead.

Meanwhile I tried my hand at no-knead Ciabatta, I think I might have messed up the autolyse by over mixing and didn't get much oven spring, but the flavour was fine. Just a bit of practice and it will make nice garlic bread.

Actually when I cut one, the crumb wasn't too bad, but you could see where I hadn't mixed the dough properly. There was a clear distinction between the Wholemeal Sourdough Starter and the autolysed White flour. Back to the drawing board.

I also made some Sourdough  Digestive Angels for Kath, Jan and Sue at Feathers 'n' Wingz, they were tricky as they cooked a lot quicker than I expected, probably because the appendages were thinner.

Sourdough Caraway Rolls

In response to a request, I'm trying a new roll. I had a go at a white roll with Caraway Seeds and it was very good, but the customer actually wants a Sourdough version, in a slightly bigger "sub" sort of shape.

So I have my sourdough on overnight prove, I've folded it a couple of times and it has started to rise a bit, we'll see how it looks in the morning.

At 5am it had risen a bit more,

and when I folded it, there were a lot of air bubbles,

so after a rest, (for the dough) I shaped them,

 and then, an hour later when they had risen a bit more,

they were baked at 220 degrees for 15 minutes.

Looking at the crumb, there are good holes,

 I just have to take it down and see.

Comeback

My sling is officially redundant from today. But I'm being careful and using it if I need to, my hope is that I can restart bread making for customers soon.

I have to speak to the doctor next week, and the physio as well, with their agreement I intend to resume deliveries on Weds 4th March.

I've been dabbling with one hand but it takes too long to do big batches, I'm taking the chance for a few lie-ins and a bit of product development.

There are quite a few ideas on the horizon, it will be nice to get back in the swing of things again.

Sourdough Pancakes and an Enriched Loaf.

Shrove Tuesday today, so I decided to use up some of my sourdough starter in pancakes, as well as making a couple of loaves.

I found a recipe online for the pancakes, unfortunately it was in cups which never ceases to frustrate me, just take a look online for a conversion from cups into grams to see what I  mean. Everyone seems to have their own idea of how big a cup is.

Anyhow I used 250 g of 100% hydration starter and 120g white flour, mixing it together at 5 this morning, giving it time to warm and improve the flavour. I don't want it to rise too much.

Meanwhile I made a bread dough, using 1kg of mixed flours (all the ends of bags that I had) with 650g water, 50g Olive Oil, 20g each of Yeast and Salt and 200g of mixed rye and Wholemeal starter.

This I proved for 90 minutes in my oven, then shaped into tins and left for another hour, while the oven warmed up.

The starter is not there to help the rise but adds flavour to a yeasted dough, I got the idea from a book, just add  around 10% of the final dough weight before kneading, so for a standard loaf that's 10% of 870g or about 90g (500+350+10+10) Hope that's not too much maths.

Straight out of the oven, the smell is amazing.

Back to the pancakes, by mid-afternoon the dough had risen a bit,

so I knocked it back and added 2 beaten eggs, Bicarbonate of Soda and salt to make a batter. I needed some milk as well to get it thin enough.

Then its pancake time!

Just add Cherry Pie filling and Ice-Cream.

Marking Time (One handed loaf)

With my arm in a sling for the next few days, I'm trying to work out just what I can bake one handed. I reckon I might be able to manage a no-knead white loaf, maybe I'll give it a try tomorrow. It does take longer to do everything but I can't bear sitting around. I'm a nightmare patient. I'm having to type this while Yvonne is out, if she catches me I'll be in trouble.

I mixed everything at lunchtime, 410g flour, 385g water, 3g yeast and 7g salt.

and that's it for 18 hours.

Next morning it had risen quite a bit and was bubbling,

I stretched and folded it and left it another two hours,

 putting a Dutch Oven in to warm up at maximum.


It has 30 minutes covered,

 then 15 more with the top off,

at which point it is done.

Not too shabby.

No Knead Pizza Base

 

I've been meaning to make a pizza base from a recipe that I found online, it requires no kneading, just a long resting time. Its a variation on the no knead bread recipe that I've been using for some time.

Its 165g flour, 120ml water, 2g yeast and 3g salt. Basically you mix it all together  so the flour is all moistened. Then you leave it covered for 18 hours. I started this one at lunchtime on Sunday.

At first it looked like this,

and then 8 hours later like this.

Finally on Monday morning we had this,

ready to be finished.

Simply stretch and fold the dough a few times and shape into a ball.

Wrap it and put it into the fridge until you're ready to shape it and add your toppings.