Wet walnuts

 I found these in the little greengrocer around the corner, advertised as 'Local wet walnuts'. They sounded great. I didn't know straight away if you could just eat wet walnuts - checked on the web and of course you can ;)
Cracked them open to have with greek yoghurt and honey. Of course.
They are very delicious - soft, creamy textured, as they haven't been dried out yet. Lovely.

Sweet paste melt

Another disaster. This sweet paste was meant for a pear tart. I made the pears gently cooked in Sauternes, and the creme patissiere, and was going to assemble it all in the pastry case. Nope. The pastry case decided to melt down the sides of the tin instead and look like a horror film mask. Rubbish.
It went in the bin.
I took a day to consider my options with the pears and creme patissiere.

Choux mountain

I decided to make profiteroles as I like them and have never done choux paste before.
Results were OK - the varying heat in the oven was very apparent - the top right corner being a real hotspot, which meant rotating the trays. This I think disturbed the buns a bit. Also - the oven needed to be hotter when there were two trays in there. The more heat - the more they rose.

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.

Late night Bath Buns

Bath buns (large) were made last night - finished up at 01:45. Good job there was plenty of Masterchef on iPlayer to keep me up - Doma in Copenhagen got me impossibly excited - the whole foraging thing and the insistence on looking super-locally for ingredients makes huge sense. They will have the flavours that are even in the air - as well as earth and water - that all come together. And they were friendly! and had the chefs serve to the customers, breaking the usual terrible construction of miserable, tense, stern kitchens delivering to overly polite people pretending that this food has joy. It hasn't. Doma instinctively knew that model was bollocks. Superb. We are going to save up and go. It was amazingly inspirational.

Back at base - the Bath Buns were trickier to time because they are so large, and getting the oven to cook them evenly required some interruptions and rotations. But I went to bed happy - they were cooked evenly, golden and fragrant.

Set the alarm to get up to bake the sourdough...

Flour delivery!

KOOL.

That's 5kg Spelt, 16kg Organic White Bread flour. Man, this is really exciting. After all the sourdough starter failures, i got fed up with running to the shop for flour. And, the sourdough is going to work, and we'll need to get cooking :)

Also - there are Bath Buns to make, and more bread products to research and make. I've ordered Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery from the library for the princely sum of 60p for the transfer. That should have some gems. And there's Richard Bertinet's Crust which is my new BFF, and inspiration to work through. He is fantastic at teaching what to look for and doesn't cut any corners, but neither creates unnecessary faff.

Vension & Red Wine and Rabbit & Wild Mushroom sausages, Cauliflower cheese

The sausages are made by a very nice man who sells them at the farmer's market. This weekend I got Rabbit and Wild Mushroom - which were a very dark colour due to the mushrooms -fantastic flavour. And Venison and Red Wine - which were very red inside and super delicious.
That stall is fast becoming my favourite: the venison chorizo, the sea beet, the crazy mushrooms, the amazing sausages - all made by hand (where applicable). I chatted to him about where to get Sea Beet. I want that to be my first trip in the new car :) Can't wait to go foraging!!

I also made a cauliflower cheese - because really what else can you do with a cauliflower? I was niftily upsold it at the market whilst getting some carrots, "Cauli and a cabbage for £1.20?"
Cauliflower cheese? Hmm, not made that before.
"A nice January King?"
I've never had a January King before.
"They look great. Yes please. Very good upsell." Smile.
"Well, there's no good growing it, if you can't sell it!" Job done.

Matt was very nice and said it was delicious but there was only so far he could go with cauliflower. I asked when I should cook with it next: response, "At least six months" :) 
It was lovely tho' - bechamel cooked with bay leaf gave a lovely savoury flavour, and mustard is fantastic with cheese. I cooked the cauli for 10 minutes with some lemon juice in the water, so it was nice and white. And not overcooked, thank god. There is no rescuing an overcooked cauliflower : /