Ciabatta

This is a bread I've been wanting to try for a long time but hadn't had time to schedule in making the ferment (or 'biga') before making the bread, and I wanted to do it using bricks in the oven, to give good lift on such a wet dough.

But I had a couple of days where this was going to  be possible, and so set off for homebase and bagged some paving bricks (flat on top) for 79p each, and then lined the oven floor with them.

Unfortunately they were millimetres out from being able to cover the oven floor - which then led to some interesting mis-shapings as I tried to get the bread in to a small area. And some bread slightly fell over the edges of the bricks, giving some interesting 'hooks' :)
So comedy ciabatta. Which tasted great :)

Pitta breads

I didn't really know what made pitta breads, pitta breads - not rolls. So I found a recipe in Madhur Jaffrey. And to be fair, they were quite bread-y - but cooking them on a hot skillet in the oven gives them so much lift - they hollow out more than rolls.
The dough is pretty normal - usual hydration, yeast, salt - with some olive oil added.
I loved cooking these on the skillet - they puffed up within seconds and were only cooked for a couple of minutes each :) then they were grilled to give them colour. They were soft and the definition of 'pillowy' :) Great fun.

New year's sourdough

Two beautiful sourdough loaves :) A good start to the year!

Potato bread

I saw this recipe in Prue Leith, and thought it would be fun to try. I am haunted by the tortanos of the Flour Station bakers in London, which are truly superb.
This was a different thing altogether: homely, close-textured crumb, very moist from the spuds.
Initially we couldn't work out if they were cooked or not - but after baking them as much as we dared (could be bothered) we left them. The next day - they were really really great. Who knew?

Two loaves

I've been making loaves since the Sourdough Success, with varying degrees of OK-ness. One I forgot to put salt in. YUK. Super-yuk. One was fine, but not great - I'd been making the ferment with white flour, no rye, and it lacked flavour a bit.

So rye back into the ferment, I thought I'd give two smaller loaves a try - and they're really nice, much softer crust. I didn't make these as salty as the first loaf either, so all in all a nice very nice batch. But i do want to make them rounder, and make the dough with more structure. Needs practice.

Eaten up with leftover Controversy Broccoli soup.

Sourdough success!!

Enough photos to give you the idea :) Its lovely. Very very tasty - good sourdough flavour, slightly sticky, sweet. Only criticism is that its slightly too crusty. Will work on spraying the oven more to slow down the creation of the crust.
But overall, I'm delighted. This is exactly what I was trying to do.

I set the alarm for 07:15 to bake it off, after proving for 17 hours. Sprayed the oven, baked for 25 minutes - tapped underneath and it wasn't done enough. Back in the oven for 5 minutes. Tapped again, still not done, back for another 10 minutes. By this time, I had to hand over to Matt, as it was time for me to go to college. Then I zipped back at lunchtime to check what it's like inside! Very excited to see a really open crumb :)

I refreshed the ferment this morning, so will be able to run and run with this.
In the end, it had potato and a little rye flour in the ferment. Now keeping it going with just plain white bread flour.

spelt bread and raspberry redcurrant jam

This morning started bright and hazy both. Sunshine slanting through the flat.

I made toast with my spelt loaf and remembered my sister's raspberry and redcurrant jam.
My loaf, my sister's jam. This is brilliant.

Herbs are settling in to their new home on the balcony. Lets see how long it takes the leaf hoppers to find the sage.

lemon drizzle and cassoulet

in college:
Lemon drizzle cake -
lemon sponge with lemon glace icing. Looked great! Made 3 sandwich cakes which were shipped off to the magical 'Stores'. Must find a way of retrieving cakes from the Stores.

at home:
Cheese scones - were slightly too shallow - but taste great. Make sure dough is 1inch thick next time
White spelt bread - needed slightly longer in the oven. but good crumb. tasted very yeasty tho', need to work on that flavour.
Lemon cake - repeat of what was made in college.

Cassoulet with celeriac and potato mash:
Pork and fennel huge sausage from Bath Farmer's market - really excellent.
Butter beans and cannelini beans - soaked from dry.
Also used up bacon and chipolatas in the fridge.
Celeriac went very nicely with the fennel in the sausage.