Last Friday with The Dear Leader (confusion to her enemies) off diving, and Sternest Critic starting his new job, I had the house to myself with my last commission in hand despatched to the editor the previous day. Being 84.7 per cent retired is enjoyable, or at least it is for those of us with some resources financial and personal. I'd not want every day to myself, but the occasional one is a rare treat. Naturally I chose to spend the majority of it in the kitchen.
Of late I've been baking a lot of bread, in fact I haven't bought a loaf for I'd guess three weeks. I got fed up with either tasteless dross or stupidly expensive 'artisan' offerings (that may not be very artisan). With the freezer stocked there was no need for standard stuff, so I opted to go the more exotic route and try two of Ursula Ferrigno's Italian recipes for richer loaves. One succeeded, one failed - my fault not hers.
The success was an egg-enriched flatbread, flavoured with vanilla extract (not essence, crude oil derivatives don't tempt me) and as I lacked one stipulated ingredient, with rosewater. It rose nicely, came out golden and with a pleasing texture between chewy and soft, and was very tasty. The failure was fig bread, a bit like a pannetone. It was a salutary lesson in not just following the instructions, but thinking them through. It came out claggy, far too dense at the bottom, because I used some home-made figs soaked in alcohol, but still included the juice of three oranges the recipe included for wetting dried figs. It has actually improved over the days, probably drying out a bit, and toasting helps, but I'm annoyed at not seeing the problem coming.
You live and learn. I will give the fig bread another go, maybe near Christmas. The flatbread, and others in the same vein, will appear on our table shortly. Anna del Conte's book on Northern Italian cooking features a savoury one with walnuts and rosemary; Ursula Ferrigno has others that intrigue. I've improvised my own with spare dough, baked with loads of fried onions and some herbs on top, Not that I'm obsessing, but I'm about to re-read Elizabeth David's huge tome on English bread and yeast cookery with an eye to making some enriched breads and rolls of more local heritage. We're lucky that filler-upper bread is not a major component of our diet, but good bread - from the smell as it bakes to the taste as you get outside it - can be such a joy.
Showing posts with label bread rolls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bread rolls. Show all posts
Monday, 9 March 2020
Thursday, 2 January 2020
Reading (and Viewing) and Cooking, and My Bread Recipe
Reading and cooking are two of my favourite things, so an informative and literate cookbook is always a joy. Like the wonderful Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe I can read such works as if they are thrillers. This Christmas The Dear Leader (lingering agony to her enemies) bought me Anna del Conte's tome on the cooking of Northern Italy, and it has duly been read cover to cover.
With that AdC book it has been the baking that has grabbed my attention the most. I've pretty much given up buying bread from the supermarket: sourdough that uses vinegar; leathery, pappy French sticks whose production should be punishable by death; Sainsbury's 101 ways to present tasteless white rubbish. Instead I bake batches two or three times a week, freezing the spare stuff for later. That fascination has now extended to other baked goods: yesterday I made some onion 'biscuits' from one of her recipes, and very good they were too. Biscuits, however, is a misnomer, as they are more like tiny scones, and only baked once to boot.
For many people these days I imagine TV is more likely to be the spark to ignite their culinary creativity. I've never watched GBBO, and probably never will, but I'm glad that for a very small percentage of its fans the programme has led to actual cooking at home. The shops have far more bakery equipment of a practical nature on sale; supermarkets are stocking a huge range of ingredients for fancy cake making etc. A quick scan of the shelves at one supermarket today suggests that the look of the thing, and sweet items, are what has grabbed the attention most - far more variety in cake decoration than in bread flour as a yardstick. But I really hope that, the bug having bitten, people who have not done so already will move on to making their own bread, pizzas, rolls... Sadly, however, it is probably not yet the moment to sell off your shares in Deliveroo.
For what it's worth, here's my infallible recipe for making two large loaves, or one large loaf and about 10 small rolls. It uses a lot of yeast, but as I buy mine from Aldi for 59p for 8 sachets, and it has yet to fail me, no matter.
Just in case this is needed: hot ovens can burn you; so can heated baking sheets. Use oven gloves (and common sense) to protect your hands from such hot surfaces.
1: In a large mixing bowl make a 'sponge' with 125g strong white flour (though plain would be ok), 150ml hand-hot water, and two sachets of dried yeast. Stir them together and leave for one to two hours, covered with a tea-towel, in the airing cupboard or another warm spot. The messy putty-looking mix you put in comes out more or less flat, pocked with bubble holes.
2: To that sponge add 300g of strong white flour, 300g of wholemeal or seeded granary or similar flavoursome flour, two more sachets of dried yeast, 2.5tbsp of olive oil, 2 tsp of fine salt, and 425ml of hand-hot water. Mix it, then plop it out on a floured work surface, flour your hands, and knead for about five minutes. If you knead too much the flavour suffers; too little and the texture is wrong. I go by the dough feeling 'silky' and stretching nicely to the hand - sorry there is no more scientific way of putting it.
3: When the dough is right, put it back in the mixing bowl, pour a tbsp of olive oil over it and turn so the surface gets a sheen, though there's no need to be too fussy, and then cover with the tea towel again and put it in the warm spot to rise for another hour to two hours. It has to double in size, more or less.
4: Dig your fingers into the risen dough to knock it back (get the air out of it), form into whatever loaf shape you want and put these on a floured baking sheet, or put some half way up a greased loaf tin, and again give it two hours to rise. Again the loaves or rolls should double in size.
5: Pre-heat the oven (here's where it gets difficult - everybody's oven is different, conditions and ingredients likewise), I bake at 210C, in a fan oven, it works for me. When I've gone hotter the bread's surface has been tougher but not crusty; cooler and the texture is denser. Slide the baking sheet with the loaves on onto another that has heated up in the oven (so you have one baking sheet on top of the other), and leave for 15 minutes for rolls, 25 to 40 minutes for loaves, depending on their size.
6: When they are done (looks, smell, their bottoms giving a nice hollow sound when tapped) put the bread/rolls on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes (it helps the finished texture) before succumbing to temptation.
There are few culinary pleasures to match eating fresh, hot-to-warm bread spread with butter that melts into the crumb as you watch. I tend to use organic flour, no additives, so while the bread is good for a day or two, it doesn't keep like commercial stuff. But then it generally doesn't get the chance.
With that AdC book it has been the baking that has grabbed my attention the most. I've pretty much given up buying bread from the supermarket: sourdough that uses vinegar; leathery, pappy French sticks whose production should be punishable by death; Sainsbury's 101 ways to present tasteless white rubbish. Instead I bake batches two or three times a week, freezing the spare stuff for later. That fascination has now extended to other baked goods: yesterday I made some onion 'biscuits' from one of her recipes, and very good they were too. Biscuits, however, is a misnomer, as they are more like tiny scones, and only baked once to boot.
For many people these days I imagine TV is more likely to be the spark to ignite their culinary creativity. I've never watched GBBO, and probably never will, but I'm glad that for a very small percentage of its fans the programme has led to actual cooking at home. The shops have far more bakery equipment of a practical nature on sale; supermarkets are stocking a huge range of ingredients for fancy cake making etc. A quick scan of the shelves at one supermarket today suggests that the look of the thing, and sweet items, are what has grabbed the attention most - far more variety in cake decoration than in bread flour as a yardstick. But I really hope that, the bug having bitten, people who have not done so already will move on to making their own bread, pizzas, rolls... Sadly, however, it is probably not yet the moment to sell off your shares in Deliveroo.
For what it's worth, here's my infallible recipe for making two large loaves, or one large loaf and about 10 small rolls. It uses a lot of yeast, but as I buy mine from Aldi for 59p for 8 sachets, and it has yet to fail me, no matter.
Just in case this is needed: hot ovens can burn you; so can heated baking sheets. Use oven gloves (and common sense) to protect your hands from such hot surfaces.
1: In a large mixing bowl make a 'sponge' with 125g strong white flour (though plain would be ok), 150ml hand-hot water, and two sachets of dried yeast. Stir them together and leave for one to two hours, covered with a tea-towel, in the airing cupboard or another warm spot. The messy putty-looking mix you put in comes out more or less flat, pocked with bubble holes.
2: To that sponge add 300g of strong white flour, 300g of wholemeal or seeded granary or similar flavoursome flour, two more sachets of dried yeast, 2.5tbsp of olive oil, 2 tsp of fine salt, and 425ml of hand-hot water. Mix it, then plop it out on a floured work surface, flour your hands, and knead for about five minutes. If you knead too much the flavour suffers; too little and the texture is wrong. I go by the dough feeling 'silky' and stretching nicely to the hand - sorry there is no more scientific way of putting it.
3: When the dough is right, put it back in the mixing bowl, pour a tbsp of olive oil over it and turn so the surface gets a sheen, though there's no need to be too fussy, and then cover with the tea towel again and put it in the warm spot to rise for another hour to two hours. It has to double in size, more or less.
4: Dig your fingers into the risen dough to knock it back (get the air out of it), form into whatever loaf shape you want and put these on a floured baking sheet, or put some half way up a greased loaf tin, and again give it two hours to rise. Again the loaves or rolls should double in size.
5: Pre-heat the oven (here's where it gets difficult - everybody's oven is different, conditions and ingredients likewise), I bake at 210C, in a fan oven, it works for me. When I've gone hotter the bread's surface has been tougher but not crusty; cooler and the texture is denser. Slide the baking sheet with the loaves on onto another that has heated up in the oven (so you have one baking sheet on top of the other), and leave for 15 minutes for rolls, 25 to 40 minutes for loaves, depending on their size.
6: When they are done (looks, smell, their bottoms giving a nice hollow sound when tapped) put the bread/rolls on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes (it helps the finished texture) before succumbing to temptation.
There are few culinary pleasures to match eating fresh, hot-to-warm bread spread with butter that melts into the crumb as you watch. I tend to use organic flour, no additives, so while the bread is good for a day or two, it doesn't keep like commercial stuff. But then it generally doesn't get the chance.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Better Bread Better for Us
The healthy eating programme has pushed me into even more bread making than usual, partly as the wholemeal offerings at the supermarkets are less than tasty, partly as it saves me going back for another loaf and ending up spending £20 on other stuff.
Yesterday's rolls were so good that even SC complimented them. They were not in truth wholemeal, as my 100 per cent wholemeal attempts have yielded somewhat dense results. Tasty but dense. Think any number of celebrities.
Reading about healthy eating has convinced me we need to eat more seeds, so armed with flaxseeds from Holland and B and sunflower seeds from Booth's I mixed dough per the following recipe:
1 cup s/s milk
0.25 cup lukewarm water
1 beaten egg
1 tbsp avocado oil
1 tbsp walnut oil
0.5 tsp salt
1.5tbsp sugar
0.25 cup seeds (mainly linseed)
0.75 cup wholemeal flour with seeds
1 cup wholemeal spelt flour
2 cups unbleached white flour
7g dried yeast sachet
Mixed and raised in the bread-maker, then knocked back, formed into rolls and left on a floured baking sheet in a warm place to rise for two hours they more than doubled in size before being put in a cold oven turned on to 200C and left to bake for about 25 minutes.
The results are soft crumbed, really tasty (in spite of the reduced salt), and satisfyingly bitty with seeds throughout. A perfect breakfast roll with coffee.
Using flaxseed reminded me of something from my childhood. The grandfather of my best mate of those days, at whose house in the depths of Norfolk I was sometimes invited to stay, used to take a teaspoonful of linseed oil (aka flaxseed oil) every evening. I can remember thinking this odd, and mentioning it to my parents who said something rather deprecatory about old country remedies. We now know linseeds are packed with antioxidants and Omega-3. Not for the first time we find that such remedies had real benefits. But I won't be following my Gran's advice and putting a clove of garlic in my sock the next time I get a cold.
Yesterday's rolls were so good that even SC complimented them. They were not in truth wholemeal, as my 100 per cent wholemeal attempts have yielded somewhat dense results. Tasty but dense. Think any number of celebrities.
Reading about healthy eating has convinced me we need to eat more seeds, so armed with flaxseeds from Holland and B and sunflower seeds from Booth's I mixed dough per the following recipe:
1 cup s/s milk
0.25 cup lukewarm water
1 beaten egg
1 tbsp avocado oil
1 tbsp walnut oil
0.5 tsp salt
1.5tbsp sugar
0.25 cup seeds (mainly linseed)
0.75 cup wholemeal flour with seeds
1 cup wholemeal spelt flour
2 cups unbleached white flour
7g dried yeast sachet
Mixed and raised in the bread-maker, then knocked back, formed into rolls and left on a floured baking sheet in a warm place to rise for two hours they more than doubled in size before being put in a cold oven turned on to 200C and left to bake for about 25 minutes.
The results are soft crumbed, really tasty (in spite of the reduced salt), and satisfyingly bitty with seeds throughout. A perfect breakfast roll with coffee.
Using flaxseed reminded me of something from my childhood. The grandfather of my best mate of those days, at whose house in the depths of Norfolk I was sometimes invited to stay, used to take a teaspoonful of linseed oil (aka flaxseed oil) every evening. I can remember thinking this odd, and mentioning it to my parents who said something rather deprecatory about old country remedies. We now know linseeds are packed with antioxidants and Omega-3. Not for the first time we find that such remedies had real benefits. But I won't be following my Gran's advice and putting a clove of garlic in my sock the next time I get a cold.
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Bread-stick Bonus
Baking rolls yesterday to go with homemade burgers I had some dough left over. Waste not etc, so I decided to give bread-sticks a go.
The dough btw was made (in my bread-maker) with 3/4 strong white bread flour and 1/4 cornmeal, largely because I have some cornmeal that needs using soon, but also because it gives a nice hint of gold to the end product. As I've had problems with bread rising of late I used a whole sachet of dried yeast, part of which was revived in some warm milk. It seemed to work well.
Forming the sticks was a challenge, but fun. It took me back to infant school days playing with plasticine, rolling a small ball into a sausage into a snake. As with those rather earlier efforts the final shape was less than even, but that (I hope) added a certain rustic charm to the snack.
The uncooked sticks were placed on a steel tray and left to rise for an hour or so, then put into the top of an oven just set to 220C (that is, they were put in a cool oven as it heated to 220C). I do that instead of putting bread in a pre-heated oven to give it a bit more rising. They took longer to bake than I had expected, almost as long as the sizeable bread rolls, so approaching 20 minutes, though I took the very thinnest out sooner, judging by their colour that they were done.
Sternest critic - my son - tried one and said less than flatteringly that he didn't believe I had made them. Crunchy, with a nice yeasty bread flavour, they were a winner, and I'll do more in future. On my austerity hobby-horse they were almost free, made from a scrap of dough that might have been binned otherwise (though I would probably have made a small roll for later use).
The picture shows the fatter models as the thin ones went almost instantly.
If anyone in the big-wide world can given me ideas about how to make them more even, and evenly thin to boot, I'd be grateful. I'm wondering if I could get some Parmesan to cling to the surface to add another dimension, but they were very good as they were.
The dough btw was made (in my bread-maker) with 3/4 strong white bread flour and 1/4 cornmeal, largely because I have some cornmeal that needs using soon, but also because it gives a nice hint of gold to the end product. As I've had problems with bread rising of late I used a whole sachet of dried yeast, part of which was revived in some warm milk. It seemed to work well.
Forming the sticks was a challenge, but fun. It took me back to infant school days playing with plasticine, rolling a small ball into a sausage into a snake. As with those rather earlier efforts the final shape was less than even, but that (I hope) added a certain rustic charm to the snack.
The uncooked sticks were placed on a steel tray and left to rise for an hour or so, then put into the top of an oven just set to 220C (that is, they were put in a cool oven as it heated to 220C). I do that instead of putting bread in a pre-heated oven to give it a bit more rising. They took longer to bake than I had expected, almost as long as the sizeable bread rolls, so approaching 20 minutes, though I took the very thinnest out sooner, judging by their colour that they were done.
Sternest critic - my son - tried one and said less than flatteringly that he didn't believe I had made them. Crunchy, with a nice yeasty bread flavour, they were a winner, and I'll do more in future. On my austerity hobby-horse they were almost free, made from a scrap of dough that might have been binned otherwise (though I would probably have made a small roll for later use).
The picture shows the fatter models as the thin ones went almost instantly.
If anyone in the big-wide world can given me ideas about how to make them more even, and evenly thin to boot, I'd be grateful. I'm wondering if I could get some Parmesan to cling to the surface to add another dimension, but they were very good as they were.
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