Love Life! Brixham

Just a quick post to let you know my page for this event has gone live. Check it out here:-

http://lovelifebrixham.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/well-bread.html

Look forward to seeing some of you there.

Mixed Sourdough

As it was Sunday, I thought I would try a couple of new recipes that I had found for Sourdough breads. If they work out, I'll share the details later.

This is all in aid of the upcoming "Love Life!" event in Brixham on May 15th, where I will be displaying my wares? and offering samples and information about all things Sourdough.

I made up the sponges last night for Ciabatta, Focaccia and a Walnut Loaf.

By morning I mixed doughs and left to rise for a couple of hours, then I shaped them and left for an hour while the oven warmed up. The Walnut bread was an hour behind the other two so it could be baked as the Ciabatta and Focaccia came out.

Pre baking they looked like this, not a lot of rise but I was expecting good spring.

Baking has taught me patience,I do get excited with a new recipe though and want to get it in the oven as soon as possible.

An hour later they were ready to go,

And after a 25 minute bake,

Now I have to be patient again to let them cool before cutting to inspect the internal structure.

Well they are not too bad and the taste is good enough, maybe I'll just let them prove a little longer next time.

Meanwhile the Walnut bread is in, with steam.

And the result.

I'll get back to you with the recipes later.

New Flavours

After the success of the Caraway and Fennel breads, I'm on a roll. (so to speak!)

So I've been thinking about new flavours to try, along with my Chief Tester and the unsung hero of Well Bread!, I refer of course to Yvonne. She has given me so many ideas and suggestions over the last couple of years, and her ideas are 99% brilliant.

We spent a while in thought and after looking around the offerings at the small market in Newton Abbot today, and noticed that Beetroot bread was on sale, I made Beetroot bread about a year ago and nobody really liked it, looks like once again I was ahead of the trend. (or maybe someone did like it after all and had a go?) 

Anyway, I digress; The flavour that caught my imagination was Carrot and Coriander, I spotted it online in several places within a few hours so I decided that it was a hint to do my own version.

There is a caution with this one though, as carrots are about 70-80% water you have to adjust the quantities to take account of this. In the same way that you do with the Beetroot bread, if you leave the water the same the dough is really wet and hard to shape. My plan is to allow half the carrot as water and see how we go. With the coriander in there as well, the idea is to make a kind of solid soup and a roll. Maybe a meal in one.

I started off with 200 g of grated Carrot,

10 g of chopped fresh Coriander,

475g Wholemeal Flour, 270 ml water, 10 g each of Yeast and Salt and 100g of Sourdough starter. Oh yes, 15 g of Dark Brown sugar.

Then just make it like ordinary bread.

After Kneading

After bulk rise

Shaped

Proved, (bit wonky, don't know why?)

Baked

Crumb

Close up of carrot.

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.