Freshly Baked | Bread | Recipes

Eat Your Greens Loaf

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 08:55:00 +0000

Here's a strange idea. What if you could eat your greens inside your bread? Not as a sandwich: actually in the dough.

In today's experiment, I incorporated some healthy greens into my daily bread.

How did it go? What did my children think? And who would do such a thing anyway?!

Warning: This loaf contains cabbage.

It all started with some over-ripe peaches.

"Nicest peaches you'll ever taste!" insisted my green-grocer, loading them into my rucksack for free because otherwise he would have had to throw them away.

We both knew they were basically just bags of juice.

I put them straight into the blender with a banana and made smoothie. It was not the greatest. The peach skin made it bitter. People weren't exactly queueing up for seconds. I decided to use the remainder for bread.

"What about the cabbage?" I hear you eagerly cry.

Well, I saw the blender and the cabbage and, naturally, I thought 'green bread'. Who wouldn't?!

I blended the cabbage into the last of the smoothie (there was really hardly any smoothie left: I saved a whole large glass-full in case Mr P needed some, later) and made a lovely green liquid. This green liquid was used instead of water to mix up some bread dough.

It looked quite green but not green enough. I poured in a generous amount of dried parsley. That was better. But now it smelled bitter. What to do about the flavour? I decided to add something sweet and happened upon date syrup among my supplies. In went a few tablespoons of that. Now the dough looked more red than green. At least it might taste nice.

I added a few tablespoons of flaxseeds, too, for good measure. This bread was going to be really healthy!

The loaf baked up beautifully and rose nicely in the oven. The date syrup helped it to brown nicely. It opened up quite well along the score line.

But what about the texture?

Not bad!

It was a dense bread, for sure, being 50% wholemeal and with all those flaxseeds and little pieces of cabbage inside. It sliced well and was moist enough not to feel heavy.

It smelled delicious, the date syrup giving off a sweet aroma (and not a hint of cabbage!).

The flavour was great: the date syrup was the prevailing taste, with (I am told by those with suspicious tastebuds) a detectable cabbage-flavour at the end.

Now, I could not taste the cabbage or the parsley. I ate the bread with soup, or with toppings, or toasted and the cabbage flavour didn't come through for me. The children, on the other hand, with their more sensitive palates, tasted the cabbage and were not particularly fond of it.

This has been an experiment, of course, worth doing and worth repeating.

It's a good way to get some greens, overripe fruit or unwanted vegetables into your diet. If you are catering for children, however, go easy on the cabbage.

Super Seeded Batard Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Super seeded, super delicious. This recipe is also super simple and super adaptable. Ok, I'll stop with the supers. But it's a good one.

I made this into a batard shape but you could use the dough to make any shape of loaf or rolls you like. It will work with different combinations of seeds, too, so use what you have in the house. Here's what I did.

If you need a little extra know-how, please check this out: How To Make Bread - The Master Method

^^^You can follow this link if you need more detailed instructions about how to make bread, in general. What follows is a basic overview of the super seeded batard recipe.

Super Seeded Batard

All the ingredients can be measured into a large bowl, together, at the same time.

Here we have:

500g of flour (I used half white, half wholemeal)

2 heaped tsp of instant dried yeast (I used Fermipan Red*) Not sure why I went for two teaspoonfuls: one would have been sufficient but I was thinking in terms of a speedier rise and perhaps a more yeasty flavour.

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp sesame seeds

2 tbsp sunflower seeds

2 tbsp pumpkin seeds

1 tbsp mustard seeds

1 tbsp Nigella seeds* (also known as kalonji, black onion or black cumin)
*Affiliate links

Wholemeal Pan Rustico Recipe

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 29 May 2021 13:19:00 +0000

Rustic wholemeal bread is here! (Scroll down for recipe.)

Pan rustico, or 'rustic bread', is a round or freeform loaf. This version is made with an overnight sponge for extra flavour.

I recently tested a Homemade Pan Rustico recipe using mostly white flour. I loved the slightly yeasty taste that developed with the overnight sponge. The texture of the loaf was soft and slightly crumbly: very light inside whilst also having a pleasing crust.

However...

In my endless quest to eat as healthily as possible, I won't be serving up white bread on a regular basis (much to the disappointment of my family.) I prefer to bake with mostly wholemeal flour. Could the pan rustico recipe cope with being totally wholemeal?

The other thing I didn't like about the original pan rustico recipe was the addition of sugar. I've written about sugar in bread dough previously here: Why Use Sugar In Bread Dough? and my usual stance on the subject is that it is unnecessary (except in some specific cases) and can be omitted. Would the pan rustico work ok without the sugar?

Read on to find out what happened when I put it to the test.

First attempt

The original recipe (see link above) calls for a mixture of white and brown flour. The sponge is made with white flour and the dough is made with a ratio of 3:1 white:wholemeal.

(Incidentally, if you're wondering what 'the sponge' is, please visit the pan rustico recipe link above and it's all explained there.)

The first time I tried making the recipe using only wholemeal flour I followed the original recipe and used the same proportions of yeast, salt and water. I omitted the sugar entirely.

Jnorris235 left an interesting comment on my previous pan rustico article:

This reminds me of the old Tassajara Bread Book* recipe (my hippy 60’s first cooking book at college!). It was the only way to get well risen wholemeal bread by giving the yeast time to expand without the heavy lifting of ALL the flour.
*I've added that affiliate link. Check out the book! It looks really interesting. It's on my wish list.

So, I had high hopes that an entirely wholemeal version of the pan rustico would rise well.

It was underwhelming.

The sponge looked lively enough, when I returned to it the following day. The dough mixed up well but was a little stiff. I thought, at the time, it needed a little more water, but I persisted, in the interests of making a direct comparison.

It didn't spring up much in the oven. The crust was dull and unexciting. The resulting bread was fairly dense. You expect that from wholemeal, and it was tasty, but I thought I could do better.

Second attempt

The second time I made the pan rustico using only wholemeal flour, I increased the hydration of the dough.

I made the sponge as per my (well, Dave's) original recipe and then calculated how much water we would need to give the dough a 75% hydration (see recipe below).

The dough was much easier to work with and felt as though it would stretch more than the first attempt.

Indeed, it rose better and felt lighter and more springy as it went into the oven.

I wanted to do something about the crust so I gave it a skilly wash.

The resulting bread had a tasty, shiny looking crust with a pleasant crispiness to it. The crumb was soft and open (I mean, as soft and open as you could expect with wholemeal flour) and the loaf was deemed a success.

I now feel confident to share with you the proportions I used to make a successful wholemeal pan rustico.

The recipe

For the starter sponge:

150 ml water
7g instant yeast (such as Fermipan Red*)
125g wholemeal flour
*Affiliate link to a good deal on Amazon. If you're baking regularly, this is definitely the most economical way to buy yeast. It'll keep in the sealed packet for months, can be frozen and will keep well once opened if stored in an airtight container.

For the dough:

244 ml water
7g yeast
400g wholemeal flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1-2 tbsp white or cider vinegar

Please see the previous post about Pan Rustico for more details about the method.

Did you try it?

If you've made either of these pan rustico versions, or made some adaptations of your own, I'd be very interested to hear about it. Please comment below. (Comments help more than you know, with getting search engines to notice my content - thank you!)

Five Secrets To Making The Crispiest Crackers

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 22 May 2021 11:04:00 +0000

Use some oil in the mixture
Baking powder helps with lightness
Roll the mixture out very thinly
Use the 'five-a-side' rule of baking
Allow to dry in the oven

Baking your own savoury crackers can be a really easy, economical way to make tasty snacks for the family. They can be as healthy as you like, too, since you control the level of salt and decide how much wholemeal flour to use.

I've been experimenting a lot, lately, because I want to make crackers - quickly - using discarded sourdough starter, from Bernard. The results have been mixed. Usually very tasty, occasionally burnt at the edges and often, sadly, really really hard.

Crackers are not so-called due to their effect on teeth, are they?!

I've been trying to achieve crackers that crack: crispy, crunchy, light and brittle.

Here's what I know.

You need some oil in the recipe

Oil is a shortening agent. It curtails the development of gluten in the dough, shortening the strands and resulting in a dough that is more crumbly than stretchy (think scones or pastry versus bread). If you're designing a cracker recipe, use a good slosh of oil to help the crackers stay on the crumbly side of solid.

Suggested cracker toppings: seeds, herbs and smoked paprika

Baking powder helps with lightness

You might be making crackers to use up some discarded sourdough, or perhaps some bread dough that went wrong, somehow, and didn't rise. You could also be making dough with the express purpose of making crackers. Either way, I have found that a raising agent is needed. Baking powder has made the difference between concrete and perfectly edible.

Roll the mixture out really thinly

Crackers turn out best if they are rolled really thinly. Just roll them as thinly as you possibly can. A cracker more than a few millimetres thick, in my experience, just isn't a cracker. It's more of a building material.

My top tip, for what it's worth, is to put a piece of dough no bigger than a grapefruit onto a non-stick reusable baking liner* and roll out the dough in situ. Flour, oil or water on the rolling pin will help it not to stick to the dough.
*Affiliate link

The five-a-side rule of baking

The best crackers, I have found, are baked at a fairly high temperature for a short length of time. For best results, aim for a temperature of around 210^oC and cook the crackers for five minutes on each side.

Because I make my crackers in one huge piece, they are easy to flip over at half time. It's more fiddly if you've made individual crackers, but 'you do you', as they say. So, it's five minutes on each side but that's not all...

Leave them to dry

After the five-a-side baking is done, turn the oven off and leave the crackers in the oven for another hour or so. That, my friends, is how crackers end up dry, crispy and not burnt.

Your crispy crackers will keep quite nicely - in an airtight container or not, it doesn't matter - for several days. I can't comment on longer than that because we are a family of five and crackers simply do not hang around.

Basic recipe - open to creativity

Try my Savoury Crackers Four Ways recipe or create your own version something like this:

With flour

400g flour (any sort!)

A slosh of oil (maybe 1-2 tbsp)

A slosh of honey (optional but it adds a nice flavour)

1 tsp salt

1 heaped tsp baking powder

260g water (or enough to make a workable dough - depending on how much oil and honey you used)

With sourdough discard or starter

200g sourdough starter/discard (assuming around 70% hydration)

280g flour

A slosh of oil (as above)

A slosh of honey (as above)

1 tsp salt

1 heaped tsp baking powder

Approx. 180g water (to make a workable dough - this depends how wet your starter was, as well as the amount of oil and honey you sloshed in)

You can include seasoning in the mixture or add it to the top of the cracker after you roll it out. Small things can easily go into the dough whilst larger seeds are best added afterwards.

Small things to add to the dough (note, these are ideas. I'm not intending that you add them all at once):

Smoked paprika

Dried herbs

Nigella seeds*

Sesame seeds

Curry powder
*Affiliate link

Larger things to sprinkle on top of the crackers once rolled (use the rolling pin to press the seeds into the dough so that they stick better):

Pumpkin seeds

Fennel seeds

Sunflower seeds

Obviously, your imagination and store cupboard are the only limits. Go wild!

What are your favourite cracker combinations? Did they turn out crispy?

Homemade Pan Rustico (Rustic Spanish Bread)

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 15 May 2021 16:28:00 +0000

Soft, fluffy, light and extra tasty. Pan rustico - or 'rustic Spanish bread' - has been described as 'half way to sourdough'. This is due to the slightly convoluted method involved and the resulting flavour. It's so worth it!

Here I explain what makes this bread so special and, most importantly, how you can make some for yourself.

My pan rustico adventure began, as bread adventures sometimes do, with Dave. Here's a nice wave from Dave on Instagram.

It was Dave who encouraged and instructed me with Bernard and it was Dave who sent me his pan rustico recipe to try. Since my daughter wasn't keen on the sourdough I was making, pan rustico might be the next best thing: flavoursome but not too flavoursome, and definitely not sour.

The recipe that Dave sent me was adapted from the Hairy Bikers' recipe. Here's the link to the Hairy Bikers' recipe on the BBC website. Do check out Dave's Instagram account for pictures of his beautiful bread: sourdough, rustic and otherwise.

My son Could Not Wait to cut into this bread, still quite hot from the oven. It smelled so good!

Overnight sponge

This pan rustico recipe calls for an overnight sponge. More on that in a moment. Not all pan rustico recipes start with a sponge. Some of them look just like ordinary white bread, to me, but the Hairy Bikers/Dave-style recipe requires an overnight sponge, which is what gives the bread its extra tasty - um - taste.

An overnight sponge is a mixture of yeast, water and flour which is left for several hours (or overnight) to start the fermentation process. This is quite common in sourdough preparation but this recipe uses instant yeast. The lengthy fermentation process develops more flavour than you would normally get from rapid-acting instant yeast.

So, this was the night 'before'. Flour, water, yeast and sugar*, making an advanced start on the fermentation process.
*I'm not sure if sugar is really necessary. I'm quite anti-sugar at the moment so when I next try this recipe, I'm going to miss it out. On this occasion, it being my first attempt, I thought it wise to stick to the instructions.

By the following morning we had this:

The sponge was full of bubbles and it smelled delicious: fruity, yeasty and slightly alcoholic. It was begging me to bake with it but I had to hurry off to my COVID vaccine appointment so I ended up leaving the sponge for several more hours after this picture was taken.

Making the dough

The next stage is to make the dough by adding the rest of the flour, more water, more yeast, more sugar* and salt. Ooh, there was also some oil and vinegar in there, too.
*Again, I'm pretty sure that sugar is not necessary in bread but I was playing by the recipe rules this time.

Dave uses white flour for the sponge and a mixture of white and wholemeal flour for the dough, so that's what I did too. In future, I'll be interested to try this technique again using entirely wholemeal flour, since that's my preferred type of bread. It might not be quite so fluffy and delicious as this was, though(!)

I mixed up the dough and it was very wet. After kneading for about ten minutes, it began to feel more under control, though it was still wanting to spread out and run away rather than sit nicely under its bowl.

It was supposed to ferment for an hour or so, until doubled in size. At one point, I couldn't resist giving it a bit of a plumping up*, to see if I could encourage it to hold its shape better.
*Not a technical term: just an action that reminded me of plumping up a pillow.

This picture was taken when the hour was almost up and the dough was inflating nicely. It still smelled great and it was feeling light and spongy.

Shaping

After the bulk fermentation stage, when the dough has doubled in size, comes the shaping. Dave suggested flattening the dough into a square and folding the corners into the middle, twice. My dough was so wet that this proved a little tricky and I ended up rolling the dough up, several times, in an attempt to tame it into some sort of round shape.

Then Dave said to place it in a tin. I didn't think any of my tins were large enough (and I definitely didn't have a suitable round tin) so I decided to deviate from the instructions and deposit my unruly dough into a proving bowl. (My 'proving bowl' is a round plastic bowl lined with a tea-towel. It works fine!)

Baking

The pan rustico is to be baked at a high temperature for 10 minutes and then slightly lower for a further 20.

I pre-heated my Le Creuset casserole dish* and gingerly transferred the dough from the proving bowl onto a piece of baking paper.
*Something like this (affiliate link).

It felt quite fragile, like a big ball of air that might deflate. I made a slash across the top, with a sharp craft knife and lowered it into the hot casserole dish.

I baked it for the first ten minutes with the lid on (for the best crust) and the remaining time with the lid off. After the full cooking time had elapsed, as per the recipe, the bread still looked pale (probably because the recipe hadn't expected me to have had a lid over the bread!) so I cooked it for a further ten minutes, until it looked more golden.

It had risen really well! It had inflated to almost fill the casserole dish!

It was smelling gorgeous and no one could wait to tuck in.

The recipe said 'wait 45 minutes' but...

Dave, we did not wait.

This was such a treat for my children who are usually subject to my healthy regime of robust, brown food!

Here we have a loaf that is soft, fluffy and springy. It wasn't just soft, white bread, however. There was more to it than that. It had real flavour, as developed in the overnight sponge. It wasn't sour, though. Even my daughter with the sensitive taste buds liked it.

The crust was crisp but not hard: almost flaky, perhaps due to the oil in the dough? It was a lovely contrast with the soft crumb but not at all challenging to the teeth.

The recipe

I feel a bit of a fraud to share the recipe here since I got it from Dave who got it from the Hairy Bikers. I shall list the ingredients and you can click through to the BBC website (link near the top of the article) for the full details of the method. This one won't be in my recipe book as it isn't truly mine.

Starter sponge:

150ml water

1 tsp sugar

7g yeast

125g flour

Dough:

200ml water

1tsp sugar

7g yeast

300g white flour

100g wholemeal flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

1-2 tbsp white or cider vinegar

Let me know

Are you going to try it? Did you try it?

I'd love to hear about your experience of the pan rustico.

Let me know if you have a favourite bread recipe to recommend. I've enjoyed trying the pan rustico and I can't wait to try the overnight sponge process again without the sugar and with entirely wholemeal flour. (Done: here.) No doubt my children will consider it 'ruined' but it's worth at least making the attempt!

Proving Bread Overnight - Why And How?

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 08:52:00 +0000

What about proving bread overnight, Paul Hollywood style (or otherwise)? Why would you want to? And how best to do it? If you've been wondering about the secrets of an overnight prove, this article is for you. Here I discuss the benefits (and potential drawbacks) of overnight proving and give you the easiest method for overnight success.

Note that Paul Hollywood and I may slightly disagree over the details of how to use this technique but, don't worry, I'll explain our differences and you can do whatever works for you.

Why Prove Bread Overnight?

If the bish-bash-bosh approach to bread making is your thing, you might not want to wait until tomorrow for your loaf. Naan bread, fresh from the oven, anyone? With instant dried yeast you can easily make bread within a few hours. However, with a little forward planning, you could start to see the benefits of an overnight prove.

Most of the time required to make bread is not hands-on. You're going to spend the majority of the time waiting for your dough to rise and your loaves to prove. Think how good it would be to wake up in the morning and be able to bake your bread immediately. Hot rolls for breakfast? Focaccia ready by lunchtime? Freshly made pizza rolls to take on a picnic? Having that dough ready to bake, first thing in the morning, is a real boon.

The overnight prove also prevents you from having to stay up late, waiting for your bread to be ready. Making the decision to pop the dough in a cold place overnight and bake it in the morning could definitely be better for a person's routine.

Why Not?

'Overnight' could be a very long prove: many hours longer than your typical instant-yeast dough would require. One of the risks of overnight proving is that it could be too long: the dough could become over-proved and saggy, falling into a flat pool of disappointment when baked. There is a simple remedy for this, so read on.

On The Plus Side (Maybe)

A long prove is said to result in better tasting bread. Because the yeast has longer to work on the flour, the flavours become more complex and perhaps more sour. If you are a fan of sourdough bread, this could be a great way to develop a more flavoursome loaf. If you are not a fan of sourdough, though, an overnight prove could be a less attractive idea.

In my experience, instant yeast breads do not develop a particularly sour taste overnight, so don't be disheartened.

What Did Paul Hollywood Say?

Having a bit of a google, as you do, I saw that Paul Hollywood had recommended leaving dough overnight. He'd been asked how to fit bread-making into a busy schedule and suggested that dough could be refrigerated in order to pause the process if it was more convenient to bake on the following day.

His suggestion was to mix up the dough and refrigerate it for the first fermentation stage. The following day (or, I believe, two or three days later would be fine) you let the dough warm up to room temperature for shaping and proving before baking it.

This is fine. It definitely works. I've done it myself. I've even done an extreme version of this where I actually froze the dough for several weeks. By all means use this method. But my preferred method is slightly different...

What's My Preferred Method?

I don't chill my dough at the fermentation stage. I wait until it is fully fermented (it will have doubled in size) and shaped into its final form. This, truly, is the proving stage.

After a short rest at room temperature (30 minutes to an hour) the remainder of the proving happens overnight in the fridge or (in winter) the cold garage. This way, when you wake up in the morning needing to get your pizza rolls ready before you set out on a hike, or hoping to have loaves ready for lunchtime, you can put on the oven immediately and bake the bread straight from the fridge.

It's a matter of personal preference and you should (obviously) do whatever works best for you.

How To Prevent Over-Proving

Leaving your dough unattended for a long time has the potential to be disastrous. By the time you come back to your dough it could be all over the fridge or slumped into a soggy, over-proved mess.

How you mitigate that depends on the type of bread you are making.

Since baking with Bernard, I've learnt that sourdough takes its time and tends to be a slow process. Instead of completing the first rise within an hour, Bernard-bread takes all day. I can safely prove Bernard-bread in the fridge overnight with no ill-effects. Indeed, a cold 'retard' of the final proving stage seems to be a standard process in the sourdough community.

When baking with instant yeast (this Fermipan Red* will keep very well in its sealed packaging for months) the fermentation will happen much more rapidly and is more likely to go wrong when you are not looking. It's a good idea to reduce the amount of yeast you are using in your dough. That, and the cold, will slow the whole process right down, making it (almost) guaranteed not to be a messy disaster in the morning.
*Affiliate link

Good news: I recently made pizza rolls using the overnight proving method. I made them with my usual recipe, using in the usual amount of instant yeast. I left the rolls proving in the (cold!) oven in the (chilly) kitchen overnight and baked them in the morning. They grew A Lot in the night but they did not collapse from over-proving and were very successful picnic food. So, there you go: if you've got a big enough tin/bowl/tray to ensure that your dough isn't going to escape and make a mess, the normal amount of yeast may be fine.

A Convenient Method

Overnight proving is my go-to method with Bernard. I mix up my dough in the morning, wait all day for it to double in size, shape it in the evening and pop it into the fridge before bed. The following day I heat up the oven, first thing, and bake the bread straight from the fridge.

The best reason for proving bread overnight if you're using instant yeast is for the simple convenience of having fresh bread first thing in the morning. I do this every time I'm making pizza rolls or dough balls for picnics when I want to be ready to leave for an adventure as soon as possible after breakfast.

Have You Tried This?

Have you tried proving bread overnight, Paul Hollywood style or otherwise? What's your experience? Please leave a comment below (it helps me more than you might think!) and, of course, feel free to ask questions: my mission is to help you make great bread.

For Fresh Bread In 20 Minutes, click here.

How To Use Fermipan Red Yeast

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 18 Apr 2021 13:38:00 +0000

Fermipan yeast: How do you use it? Is it good? Can it be stored? Here are all the answers to your Fermipan yeast questions.

If you want to know more about Fermipan Red yeast, you've come to the right place. I have been using Fermipan Red yeast for decades. It is my top choice of instant dried yeast.

In this article I will explain how to use Fermipan Red yeast, how it can best be stored and why I recommend it over other instant dried yeasts.

What Is Fermipan Red Yeast?

Fermipan Red* is an instant dried yeast. It's worth noting that there are three different ways of buying yeast (I'm not including wild yeast/sourdough here). Yeast is either fresh, dried or 'instant'.
*This is an affiliate link which may earn me a commission, for which I am very grateful :o)

Fresh yeast can be hard to find. It is sometimes given away for free in bakeries and can occasionally be found in the fridge section of supermarkets. It is sold in chunks and is, literally, a lump of fresh, living yeast, ready to use for baking bread.

You are much more likely to find dried yeast in the shops. This is yeast that has been dried and formed into tiny pellets of roughly uniform sizes. 'Ordinary' dried yeast has a relatively large pellet size, compared to 'instant' dried yeast.

There is more information on the Different Types of Yeast and How To Use Them in this article.

Fermipan Red is an instant dried yeast. This means that it is slightly easier to use than other dried yeasts.

Fermipan Red Does Not Need To Be Activated

Dried yeast is dormant. Before it can multiply and make lots of carbon dioxide bubbles to inflate your bread, it needs to be woken up. It comes out of dormancy when you wet it. Wetting the dried yeast pellets frees the yeast cells and allows them to become active.

Yeast pellets in dried yeast are (relatively!) large so it is necessary to soak them for a few minutes in advance of using them in your bread dough. This ensures that the pellets have broken down sufficiently to expose all the yeast cells to the flour and let them get to work.

Fermipan Red* does not need to be activated in advance.
*Affiliate link to the product on Amazon.

Because the pellets of Fermipan Red are so tiny, they break down easily and quickly within the dough as you mix and knead it.

Fermipan Red can be added to the mixture along with all the other ingredients and will be instantly active. The water content of the dough is sufficient to disintegrate the tiny pellets and release the yeast from dormancy.

How Much Fermipan Red Do I Need?

Instant dried yeast is really easy to use. You only need one teaspoon of Fermipan (about 5g) to 500g of flour (or 1g/100g if you want an easy way to scale for whichever recipe you are using).

My go-to bread recipe is:

500g flour
5g instant dried yeast
5g salt
315g water

You simply add the yeast along with the other ingredients, mix and knead to make your dough.

For a more detailed explanation of how to make bread, please read my Master Method to see a step by step method for making successful bread with Fermipan Red.

You can also find my ever-growing bread recipe collection here, all of which can be made with Fermipan Red.

Economy In Bulk

Aside from its ease of use, the main reason why I have been buying Fermipan yeast for all these years is because it is economical.

Dried yeast is often sold in tiny packages and individual sachets. Not only does this mean you get more packaging per gram of yeast (which is worse for the environment, obviously) but you also end up paying significantly more per gram, too.

Currently, this 500g packet of Fermipan Red is priced at £5.32 on Amazon*. That is £10.64/kg. Asda are selling 6x7g sachets of 'Easy Bake' yeast at 52p, which is £12.38/kg (plus all that extra packaging, of course).
*Affiliate link.

So, if you're only baking once and you're never going to use 500g of yeast, buying small makes sense. If, on the other hand, you think you'll be making more than 6 loaves of bread in the foreseeable future (I make at least three per week plus extras such as pizza rolls and focaccia) buying in larger quantities is a good idea.

How To Store Fermipan Red

Fermipan comes vacuum packed in foil and will stay fresh, unopened for months, if not years. It's best to store it in fairly cool conditions. Mine lives in a cupboard in a cool corner of the kitchen where it is not affected by sunshine or heat from the oven.

Once you have opened the foil packet, you may want to take some of the yeast out into a smaller container for day-to-day use. I keep a small amount in a glass jar with a screw-top lid.

I put an elastic band round the packet containing the remaining yeast and store it in an airtight container in the same cool, dark cupboard I was mentioning before. I have successfully kept Fermipan like this for about a year without noticing any deterioration in activity.

My parents like to buy Fermipan in even larger quantities (and at an even cheaper price) and then freeze most of it. So, if you're finding that you are slow to use up the yeast that you have bought, freezing it is an option that will help it to stay fresh even longer.

What's Your Experience?

Do you buy Fermipan yeast? What do you think? Please share your comments below.

And, of course, if you have any questions, I'm here to help.

More...

Here's my guide to baking Fresh Bread In 20 Minutes.

Buy the complete set of recipes, here.

And I'd love it if you'd Like, Share and Comment too - it helps me more than you might think.

Matthew's Eight Grain Flour

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 14:52:00 +0000

Put to the test: Matthew's Cotswold Eight Grain flour. Want to know how it went?

AND there's a neat little experiment to determine the perfect hydration (you can do this with any flour).

If you want to understand more about getting the best results from your flour, read on.

Matthew's flour was introduced to me a few weeks ago by reader, Tony - thanks Tony :o) I treated myself to some Matthew's flour to try. Recently, I reviewed the Cotswold Crunch (which was not dissimilar to Allinson's Country Grain). This week, it was time to try the Eight Grain*, "For multigrain bread high in fibre and protein," according to the packet.
*This affiliate link takes you to the product on Amazon so that you can see more details.

This flour contains malted wheat flakes, rye flakes, oat flakes, maize, linseed, millet seeds and sunflower seeds. Although it is a white flour (I'm rather partial to wholemeal) it is packed with fibre and nutrients from all those seeds and grains.

This week I did two things with this flour:

Made a loaf, using Bernard
Performed a short test to find out the optimum hydration level for this flour

First, The Bake

I used some of Bernard, the sourdough starter, to mix up a 70% hydration dough:

170g Bernard

400g Matthew's Cotswold Eight Grain flour

280g water

10g salt

This was mixed and kneaded before being left to ferment for about 12 hours. I made the dough in the morning and then went out for the day. It was late evening before I shaped the loaf. This is about right for Bernard at this time of year. He's taking about 8-10 hours to make my dough double in size. (See last week's post for how to know if your dough has doubled in size.)

I shaped the dough into a round loaf and popped it, upside down, into a proving basket (alright, a bowl lined with a tea-towel) and left it in a cool place (my chilly kitchen) overnight.

The following day I heated a casserole dish in the oven to about 230^oC so that I could place the loaf onto the very hot surface of the casserole dish and trap steam in with the lid for better crust formation.

This was the dough when I tipped it out of the so-called proving basket. It felt light and full of gas bubbles but it had an expression on its face that suggested it was going to splurge rather than rise. Oh well, I decided to press on anyway.

I scored the loaf with one slit across the top, to allow for rapid expansion. I thought I'd ruined it at that point because the score murdered the fragile inflated shape and then, to make matters worse, my clumsy transfer into the hot casserole dish caused further deflation.

The loaf was baked for 15 minutes with the lid on and a further 30 minutes at a slightly reduced temperature with the lid off.

Despite the butchery of the scoring and transfer process, the loaf did rise - phew! - and opened up quite well along the score line.

Alas, as suspected, it went more 'along' than 'up' which I think results from a combination of a) the high hydration of the dough, and b) insufficient gluten development which is something I am learning about but I know it involves more stretching and folding of the dough than I did in this case.

The resulting bread was a good texture inside and had a great (crunchy!) crust. Here's the crumb shot:

What about the flavour?

The seeds and grains in this flour give it a delicious flavour. I really loved this bread. It is mellower than the Cotswold Crunch and, for that reason, I prefer the Eight Grain.

Hydration

Different flours work well at different levels of hydration.

Hydration, just to remind you, is the amount of water in the dough. Bakers express the amount of water as a percentage of the amount of flour. For a dough with 100g of flour, 100g of water would be 100% hydration. 60g of water would be 60% hydration, and so on.

Most of my recipes use 63% hydration and that's fine. It works well and you will get decent results.

Professional bakers are able to work with very high hydration doughs. This is how they achieve the huge air bubbles (they call it 'open crumb') that characterises baguette, for example. Being able to handle very wet dough is an art in itself (one that I am working on, so watch this space, as they say) but not every flour is really suited to high hydration recipes.

If you want to play around with hydration levels, there's a simple experiment you can do to determine what level of hydration you can comfortably work with, for a given flour.

Take four or five containers and portion out equal amounts of flour. For calculation purposes, 100g or 50g works well.
Add water to each portion at a different hydration level.
For my four pots of Matthew's Eight Grain I used 50g of flour in each with 60%, 70%, 80% and 90% hydrations (30g, 35g, 40g and 45g of water).
Mix the flour and water together so that they are completely combined but try not to knead them at all, otherwise you might end up kneading one dough more than an other, unfairly developing more gluten and skewing the results of the test.
Leave the mixtures alone for an hour or so.
When you return to the mixtures, test each one in turn by pulling the dough up with your fingers. This is where you will learn something. In the intervening hour, the gluten in the flour has developed into longer strands. These gluten strands are what will give your bread dough structure and capture the gases produced by the yeast, enabling the dough to inflate. Pulling on the dough in your test containers quickly reveals which combination of flour and water is the stretchiest. Choosing a hydration level close to that of your stretchiest result will give you optimum results when you come to bake bread.

For the Eight Grain, it was clear that the flour worked best at the lower end of the hydration range. The 60% hydration mixture was very stiff and didn't seem to have much elasticity but the 70% hydration mixture was able to stretch much more easily.

You can see how stiff the 60% hydration dough was. This was as far as I could pull it up:

The dough at 70% hydration was appreciably more elastic:

At 80% and 90% the dough was very sloppy and lacking in structure. It broke easily as I tried to stretch it, leading me to think that somewhere between 60 and 70% hydration would be better for this flour.

Here are the 80 and 90% mixtures. You can see how they tended to break rather then stretching.

Any Questions or Words of Wisdom?

Please leave a comment below if you like the Eight Grain too or if you have any other favourite flours to recommend.

What about hydrations? Have you tried playing with different ratios of flour and water? What did you think?

How To Bake Your First Sourdough Loaf

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 04 Apr 2021 11:24:00 +0000

Don't be daunted please. Sourdough bread need not be complicated.

You've got your sourdough starter and you're ready to make your first loaf. Let's keep it simple.

Of course, there is a lot of information out there about how best to bake sourdough bread. It can all seem overwhelming. The same could be said for commercial-yeast breads too. The more you read, the more you realise you don't know. Rest assured, people have been making bread very simply for centuries with cooking facilities much more basic than yours. Sure, you can read and read (and read): it can be fun and exciting to learn more and hone your technique. But if you're just starting with sourdough and you want to make a loaf of bread as simply as possible, read on.

Last week, I wrote about how to make a sourdough starter from scratch, and introduced you to Bernard. This week, Bernard has fulfilled his destiny and become several loaves of bread.

Making the bread

The method, in brief, is this:

Incorporate some sourdough starter into your dough: mix flour, water and starter until you have a dough that feels good to work with. The more starter you use, the quicker your dough should rise (theoretically)
Allow the dough to ferment until doubled in size
Shape the dough
Prove the bread
Bake the bread

This is all as per The Master Method, only slower.

You can do this two ways: measured and accurate, or by feel.

Measured and Accurate

I began measured and accurate. This is my reasoning:

Bernard was made with a ratio of 1:1 flour to water (100% hydration). He contained 200g of wholemeal flour and 200g water. Each day I would remove 200g of Bernard and refresh him with 100g flour and 100g water. It was easy, therefore, to calculate how much flour and water would be required to make Bernard into my standard 63% hydration dough. One loaf is usually 500g flour and 315g water. Using 200g of Bernard, I just needed to make up the difference: 400g more flour and 215g more water.

By Feel

Over the course of the last week I have been experimenting with hydration. Bernard was smelling quite alcoholic and the resulting bread was quite sour. I wanted to encourage Bernard to be less sour and I wondered if changing his hydration could help. At first I added lots of flour and reduced his hydration to 50% to make what is known as a 'stiff starter'. That seemed to be working out ok but then I read somewhere that you can leave your stiff starter in a pool of water to somehow draw out the acidity. Naturally, by morning, I had soft starter on the outside and stiff starter in the middle and my carefully measured hydration levels were lost in a puddle.

Then I decided it was easier to work with a looser starter so I increased the hydration again, this time up to about 70%, which I gauged by feel since I no longer knew for sure how much flour and water I had, exactly.

Next time I made a loaf, I incorporated 200g of starter into my mixture, again adding 400g of flour and adding the water by feel until the dough felt soft enough.

Whether by measuring or by feel, the instruction is simply to mix some of your starter into your bread dough and that starter is (obviously) the raising agent, in place of bought yeast.

A Note on Salt

Some people advocate not adding salt immediately to your sourdough mixture. Salt can be thought of as putting the brakes on the yeast, which might not be kind to your delicate little sourdough. It is, perhaps, better to add the salt after the first fermentation stage, prior to shaping and proving. With Bernard, I've found that it has been fine for me to add the salt at the start, along with the starter, flour and water. You choose. But don't forget the salt!

A Note on Sponges

Many sourdough bread recipes start with a 'sponge'. A sponge is a mixture of the starter with some of the flour and water for the recipe, mixed together and left for a while - overnight, maybe. The purpose of the sponge is, as far as I can tell, twofold. One, it is to check that the starter is nicely active before you potentially waste ingredients in a mixture that will refuse to rise. Two, it is to develop flavour since a longer fermentation time leads to a more developed taste.

I did not make a sponge. One, Bernard is very active. I'm feeding him daily and he is clearly bubbling and ready to make my bread rise. Two, I don't want my bread to become too flavoursome. My children are not keen on the taste of sourdough so I'm more interested in a quicker process resulting in a milder taste.

Fermentation

Once you've got your dough, it needs to ferment, as you would expect. Commercially available yeast can work very fast. On a warm day the first fermentation stage could be as short as an hour. Bernard is not so fast. With sourdough, you must be prepared to wait. The first loaf I made with Bernard was a little brick. I just couldn't believe it was taking so long, gave up waiting and baked the bread. Oops.

That's the 'little brick' on the right, compared to the same quantity of dough, properly risen, on the left.

You can follow the fermentation 'rule' of allowing your dough to double in size. If you are feeling doubtful about how much expansion you are seeing, take a small sample of the dough and place it in a container with straight sides, and somehow mark the level of the dough (an elastic band works well, or a pen mark if you like). I have a container with gradations on it.

This dough took all day (it was a chilly one) to double in size.

After the dough has doubled in size you can divide it into the required portions if you're making smaller loaves or rolls and go ahead with the shaping. (Ah, shaping. We may need more information on this. My tutorial package "How To Bake Beautiful Bread" has clear instructions on several shaping techniques. there's also a little video on loaf shaping in The Master Method.) At this stage you could pop your loaf into a tin. I have been enjoying making free-form loaves this week so my dough went into a make-shift proving basket (a bowl lined with a tea towel - I should maybe buy a proving basket* but I haven't yet).
*Affiliate link - purchases made via this link may earn me a commission and help to support my work - thank you.

Your dough then needs to prove (What Is Proving And Do I Need A Basket?), as usual, only not quite 'as usual' if you're used to commercial yeast because this stage can also been quite slow. The easiest way around this, I have found, is to put the proving bread somewhere cool (the fridge, the garage) overnight and bake it in the morning.

The dough is properly proved when it is springy to the touch (How To Know If Your Dough Had Risen Enough) and passes the 'prod test'. The prod test is about giving the dough a poke and seeing how readily it springs back. I've found conflicting opinions online: should the dough spring back immediately or is that too much proving? I'd say it has to be quite springy (see the video in the article linked to above) but I can understand the desire to leave something more 'in the bag' as it were, for the oven spring.

My overnight proving (in the fridge) has been enough. I get the dough out of the fridge in the morning and keep it at room temperature while I heat the oven, then bake it immediately.

Note: if you're transferring the dough from a proving basket to the oven, it's useful to use a piece of baking paper or reusable tray liner* to help the move go smoothly. Place the paper on top the proving basket and gently tip the dough onto the paper. You can then pick the paper up by its edges to lift the dough onto the baking surface. This is advantageous over handling the dough directly as it prevents tearing of the dough and allows you to place the dough onto a preheated baking sheet without burning your hands.
*Affiliate link.

Baking the Bread

When it comes to baking your sourdough, it's the same as any other bread. For best results, you need to get the dough into contact with as much heat as possible in the first few minutes of cooking whilst also preventing the crust from forming too fast. Delaying the crust allows the bread to expand more, resulting in a lighter texture/more open crumb/less brick-like effect. Placing the dough in a hot oven on a pre-heated tray helps to maximise the heat energy getting into the loaf. Delaying crust formation can be done in several different ways, involving steam. For more details please read "How To Achieve An Amazing Crust."

Et Voila

I had a few attempts to bake with Bernard this week and, with the exception of the aforementioned brick, the bread has been pretty good. Here's the crumb shot from the first properly successful Bernard loaf:

Here's another batch of two loaves I made at the same time:

One opened up nicely along the score line, the other did not.

The dots, incidentally, are the result of proving this bread in a bowl lined with a paper towel.

The texture was good :o)

And I made a fruit bread, since it's Easter (any excuse!). The fruit and some mixed spices were added at the shaping stage: I fermented the dough at first with just starter, flour, water and salt. When I came to shape the bread, I flattened out the dough and sprinkled on the fruit and spices, folding the dough over into fruity, spicy layers.

Did you make a sourdough starter? Have you made your first loaf? Let me know: I'd love to hear how you got on.

How To Start Sourdough From Scratch

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 28 Mar 2021 14:16:00 +0000

Want to start a sourdough adventure with me? This post will show you how.

There's something so satisfying about nurturing wild yeast from a simple flour and water mixture, keeping it healthy and active, watching it grow and, eventually, creating a loaf of naturally leavened bread. Here I talk you through the process of creating and maintaining your own sourdough starter.

The method described here is based on that given by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in his book, River Cottage Every Day* with some adaptions because I tend to like to experiment.
*Affiliate link

Further down this article there is a description and pictures of my sourdough starter over the course of the first week. Firstly, I will give you the instructions.

You will need:

Flour - this can be wheat or rye, wholemeal or white. Hugh says to use at least some wholemeal flour. I am using 100% wholemeal wheat flour.

A suitable container - I have found that one with a wide top is easiest since you need to be adding flour and stirring daily. A narrow top will only make this process awkward. As I happened to have a spare one in the cupboard, this is similar to what I am using.* A volume of 1 litre is ideal. Glass, plastic or ceramic is fine but metal is unsuitable, apparently. It should not be airtight. I have removed the rubber seal from the lid of mine and only rest the lid on lightly as a dust cover.
*Affiliate link

Water - Tap water is fine.

Note

You are going to be cultivating the wild yeast that is already in the flour. Yeasts are everywhere. Yeasts that can break down flour are already in the flour. Usually, they are in such small amounts that we don't notice them. They are probably even dormant, waiting for a favourable moment to grow. If you create the right conditions, you can encourage the yeast to reproduce and multiply to such an extent that you can use it to make bread. Commercial bakers' yeast, fresh yeast, dried yeast and instant yeast are all the same species, conveniently multiplied and presented ready to use. In the sourdough process you are nurturing wild yeast in the way that our first bread-baking ancestors must have done. Keep it alive and happy and it will feed you well. It's an encouraging thought.

Day One

Start with 100g of flour. HughF says to stir in enough water to make a thick batter. I used 100g of water. I slightly warmed the water to create the most advantageous conditions for the yeast to grow. Stirring the mixture will help to incorporate plenty of air, which the yeast will need in order to respire. Because it is a living thing, the yeast needs oxygen, water and food (the flour). Now that it has all three it will wake up from its dormancy and start to digest the flour and reproduce. Your aim is to develop a strong colony of yeast that can produce sufficient carbon dioxide to raise bread dough.

Day Two

Add another 100g of flour and enough water to maintain the consistency of your starter. I accurately weighed in 100g of flour and 100g of warm water. Stir well with the aim of mixing in plenty of air.

By now you might be starting to see bubbles appearing in your starter, a sign that the yeast is becoming active.

Days Three to Seven-ish (This Might Hurt A Little)

Take out half of your starter and discard it*. That's the part that might hurt. It feels so wasteful, especially as you are going to repeat this process every day. Replenish your starter with another 100g of flour and sufficient water to maintain the consistency. I literally weighed 200g of my starter into a mixing bowl and added back 100g of flour and 100g of water. You don't have to be so precise.
*Only don't! Don't waste it! I have a plan...

You now need to continue to feed and stir your starter daily for about a week. Your starter will appear to be increasingly active. It will also go through a period of smelling quite bad but this will change, over a day or so, into smelling quite good. By the end of a week, my starter was smelling fruity and slightly alcoholic.

I have it on good authority that you must not attempt to bake with your starter until at least seven days have passed, however tempting it may be. (We'll see about that!)

Continuing

Beyond the initial week-to-ten-days of starting off your starter, you will need to keep feeding it, of course, but the 'discard' part will be different since you will be taking some starter out to use for baking bread, rather than to discard. Next week's article will explain how to bake with your sourdough starter. For now, let me introduce you to Bernard.

Bernard Begins

My sourdough is called Bernard. A lot of people like to give their sourdough a name. You don't have to. Bernard doesn't know his name and doesn't come when he's called. Not naming your sourdough will in no way affect your chances of success. However, Bernard is alive and thriving and giving him a name helps me to feel more kindly disposed towards him, talk about him and engage my children in his care. I don't know where the name Bernard came from, only that my children said he 'looks like a Bernard.' If you are a Bernard and are feeling somewhat aggrieved to be compared to a bubbling mixture of flour and water, I can only apologise. No offence was intended.

Bernard started life on a sunny window sill on a warm, spring day. He lived in an old pasta sauce jar.

Bernard was a pampered sourdough, being moved into the warmest, sunniest positions around the house as the day wore on.

When I woke up on Day 2, Bernard looked like this:

Some of the water had separated out and was visible at the top of the mixture. Bernard still smelled blandly of flour and water.

I added 100g of flour and 100g of water.

I stirred Bernard frequently throughout the day to ensure that he was getting plenty of air.

By bedtime, Bernard was showing signs of bubbling by himself. This was not just trapped air.

On Day 3, Bernard once again had a layer of water on top. He also smelled pretty yucky. My boy, who had been in the habit of smelling Bernard frequently, to find out if he smelled fruity yet, took a huge and optimistic sniff of Bernard on Day 3 and was quite shocked and surprised to find out how pungently Bernard was smelling. It took him a while to recover.

The good news, of course, was that Bernard was definitely bubbling.

I 'discarded' 200g of Bernard* and added 100g of flour and 100g of water. I gave him a good stir and once again kept him in the warmest, cosiest locations all day.
*I didn't waste it! More details below.

By Day 4, Bernard was smelling less unpleasant.

Incidentally, that was also the day that I got my Lucky Iron Leaf* which is another new experience for me.
*Affiliate link.

And here's Bernard by the evening of Day 5, looking bubbly and smelling quite fruity:

You can see how much he has grown. All the bubbles of carbon dioxide are inflating the mixture. It is definitely looking active at this stage.

On Day 6, Bernard burst from his bottle! The lid, which was only supposed to be resting on lightly, came off with a pop.

Bernard was bubbling beautifully.

It was at this point that I decided to move Bernard to a bigger container.

He's much more comfortable in here and, anyway, the wider top to this container makes the daily care routine much easier.

What About The Discard?

You have to remove some of your sourdough starter in order to give it fresh flour to work with, otherwise the volume of starter will soon exceed the volume of the container. If you are not going to bake with your starter (during the first week while you are establishing your yeast or later, when you're not wanting to bake any more bread) what can you do?

Never fear, you don't need to waste it. This week I have successfully added my 200g of discarded starter to various flour-based recipes with no detrimental effects.

Focaccia

I turned the first lot of discard into focaccia by simply adding it to my go-to focaccia recipe:

Mr P got creative with the toppings so, for once, cheese and bacon were involved.

Crackers

The next lot of discard was made into crackers, similar to these Homemade Savoury Crackers Four Ways.

I added the 200g of discarded starter to some more flour, some oil and some honey, finally adding enough water to create a stiff dough. I baked them as two large crackers, to be broken up into rustic pieces for sharing later.

I cut some fancy patterns to make them easier to break up (as well as looking pretty).

I sprinkled on some seasoning. Herbs and salt:

Herbs and cheese:

Bread Sticks

With another batch of discarded starter, I made bread sticks. I combined 200g of discarded starter with 400g of flour and 215g of water, thus ending up with dough that had the same hydration as I would normally make (see The Formula For Great Dough). Making it into bread sticks, I reasoned, would mean it didn't matter if it didn't really rise very much. There is nothing to stop you adding a bit of instant dried yeast to the dough, though, if you want to ensure a good rise.

Here are breadsticks on the tray, seasoned with salt, pepper and oregano:

Breadsticks in a mug:

And, almost* inexplicably, breadsticks 'chillin' in the garden:

*There is an explanation: my daughter was lazing in the hammock (chilling quite literally because it was a cold day) and I took her some freshly baked breadsticks to warm her up.

Pizza

The other portion of discarded starter was used to make pizza. I made dough with it, as described above (see 'Bread Sticks') and made it into pizza without adding any dried yeast. Bernard didn't help the pizza to rise much but we made my son's favourite, thin and crispy bases with just enough rise in them to be pleasant to eat. Again, you could add instant dried yeast to the dough if you really want it to rise as normal.

And so, to bread

After that, your starter can probably be used to make actual bread, all by itself. But if you find yourself with starter to 'discard' you can incorporate it into your usual baking without too much trouble. There are also loads of recipes specifically for using up discarded starter which you can find online.

Starter (discarded or otherwise) can also be frozen or dried (with thanks to Dave for that advice!) if you're not ready to work with it. More on that topic in future, if you like.

Are You Starting A Starter?

Let me know if you're starting some starter and if you have any questions. We continue the sourdough journey next week when we come to baking our first loaf. Hope to see you there!

How To Boost Your Bread Recipe And Make A More Lovable Loaf

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 28 Feb 2021 15:02:00 +0000

Do you like variety? You have your tried-and-tested bread recipe, but you'd like a change?

With some simple tweaks, it's possible to make a different loaf every time, even using the same recipe.

Here are some easy ways to boost your bread recipe and enhance your baking repertoire.

Surprisingly, you can make a lot of different breads using the same basic recipe.

Start here, for example, with The Formula For Great Dough.

Using that formula, you can take any quantity of flour and understand how much yeast, salt and water to add to turn it into excellent bread.

And that's it. Once you know the formula, the possibilities are endless.

Change Your Flour

One way to bring some extra excitement to your bread-life is to change flours.

Recently, I tried Allinson's Country Grain Flour and really enjoyed it. Writing about that prompted Tony to recommend Matthews Cotswold Flour. Naturally, I felt it was my duty to give it a try and report back. The things I do for you, eh?!

These are the three types of flour that I chose. Incidentally, Matthews only send out bags of flour in multiples of five, to fill their delivery boxes. I bought two each of the Cotswold Crunch and the Eight Grain plus one of the Stoneground Wholemeal.

This week, I have been test driving the Cotswold Crunch.

It's a blend of wheat flour with malted wheat flakes, malted barley and dark rye.

Here's how the dough looked after the initial knead:

And here it is, later, at the proving stage:

You can see that it has quite a lot of texture to it. Presumably those are the malted wheat flakes.

I was pleased with the final result:

As with the Allinson's Country Grain, it seems to have a tendency to become dark (almost burnt!) very rapidly in the oven. Presumably this is due to the maltiness (sugar content). This has both malted wheat and malted barley, so be careful not to over cook it or the crust will become bitter.

The flavour of the bread was very similar to that of the Allinson's Country Grain. I enjoyed it very much. It made a lovely change from my usual loaf.

Add Extra Ingredients

Normally, I buy flour with economy and/or convenience in mind. 25kg sacks of simple wholemeal or white flour from Shipton Mill serve me well for all my day to day baking needs. Buying blended flours and those with added seeds and malted flakes tends to be a more expensive option. I wouldn't normally do that, except for the fact that I was interested in following up the recommendations that I had received.

So, one easy way to change up your loaf-making ways, for adding variety to your bread, is to buy different flours. Another way of achieving the same results would be to stick with your usual, economic/convenient flour source and buy different ingredients to add into the mix. You could buy seeds and malted grains etc in bulk and combine them with your 'basic' flour to create your own innovative blends.

Since I've been enjoying the maltiness of the Allinson's Country Grain and the Cotswold Crunch so much, I'm going to get myself some malted wheat flakes* and sprinkle them into my bread mixture, on occasion, to make a change from my plain, ordinary everyday loaf.
*Affiliate link, in case you want to know where to buy malted wheat flakes.

Pay Attention To Proportions

Bearing in mind that the amount of flour in your recipe is considered to be '100%', and the amount of other ingredients is calculated as proportional to that, a good proportion of seeds (or other added ingredients) to use is 15-20%. So, for a dough made with 500g of flour, you could add 75-100g of 'other' ingredients, be that seeds, dried fruit, spices, nuts or...? Your imagination is the limit here!

Just be aware that adding ingredients and changing flours can alter the requirement for water, in your dough. Wholemeal flour tends to be more 'thirsty' than white flour, for example. Rye flour is very 'dry' and absorbent (perhaps use it sparingly, along with some wheat flour). Chunks of fruit or vegetables can make the dough very heavy and might make it reluctant to rise. When I made these Garden Mint and Courgette Batards I increased the amount of yeast slightly, thinking that it might help the dough to rise, with all that grated courgette on board. You'll be able to feel, as you mix, whether the dough needs a little more water.

Experiment

Trying new flours and new techniques, lately, has inspired me to up my game a bit. It's useful to have a tried and tested, go-to recipe for your daily bread but it can get a bit boring. Instead of searching around for a new recipe, why not create your own? Bread is basically just flour, water, yeast and salt in the correct proportions. Add some nuts, make a plait, sprinkle on some seeds. Having mastered the master method, you can confidently experiment and make a different loaf every time.

What's your favourite bread recipe tweak?

Five Easy Techniques To Make Your Bread Super Attractive

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 10:53:00 +0000

Five ways to make your bread look extra special:

Glazing
Toppings
Plaiting/braiding
Scoring
Stencilling

Homemade bread is lovely. There's something special about being able to give a freshly baked loaf as a gift. But sometimes you want to it be extra special; something above and beyond the fact that it has been lovingly homemade. What if your bread could be lovingly homemade AND really beautiful?

Read on.

Instagram

Since joining Instagram* a couple of weeks ago, I've been thoroughly inspired by some stunningly good-looking breads. I mean, honestly, my baking does not compare. If, like me, your bread isn't necessarily Insta-worthy, fear not. I stand by my assertion that your homemade bread does not have to be perfect to be perfectly delicious. A lot of my baking is purely functional: I'm feeding my family with wholesome food. But sometimes I want to give my bread as a gift and I'd like it to be 'extra': extra pretty, extra tasty and with an extra-nice crust. When it's worth making at bit of extra effort, here are five techniques that you can use to make your bread extra attractive.

*I changed my mind: Instagram is hard work(!)

Glazing

Glazing, I would say, is your easiest route to a beautiful finish for your bread.

A glaze is a liquid applied to the bread to give it a decorative coating. Commonly used glazes for bread are:

milk
egg
oil
butter
sugar water

There's also the skilly wash, which I have written about recently.

These can give different effects depending on whether they are added before or after baking.

This article about 12 Glaze Effects, Tried and Tested compares (you guessed it!) 12 different glaze options and shows how they will look on the finished bread. Definitely check out that article if you haven't done so already.

Toppings

Another simple yet effective technique for making your bread look extra special is to add toppings.

Seeds, such as sesame or poppy seeds look very pretty atop a homemade loaf. Alas, they have a tendency to fall off easily and sprinkle all over the place with the slightest provocation. My top tip for tip-top toppings* is this: Stick them on well.
*Try saying that five times, fast.

The appropriate 'glue' for affixing toppings would be any of the water-based glazes listed about. The aforementioned skilly wash is about the best I've tried. To ensure that the seeds are firmly anchored, you can put the seeds onto a plate and gently press the dough onto the seeds. This seems to be more effective than sprinkling the seeds over the dough.

Toppings don't only have to be tiny things, sprinkled on the surface: Larger pieces such as vegetables or fruit can look nice too. About half way down Baking In Lockdown When You've Got No Yeast there are some pictures of my attempts at beautiful focaccia designs, for example.

Plaiting/Braiding

There are many ways to plait bread, of course, ranging from simply twisting together two strands of dough through to the complex weaving of many strands. Here's my article on How To Braid Bread but, since my Instagram awakening, I realise that the method outlined therein is very primitive. I've seen some impressively woven breads where the various strands are different colours, by being made from different doughs or having added ingredients to make them darker or lighter. One beautiful plait I saw recently had each strand coated in a different type of seed. I shall have to up my game!

A good tip for plaiting strands of dough together is to lightly flour each strand so that it remains separate and less likely to splurge together during proving and baking, thus ruining all your hard work.

Scoring

My recent foray into Instagram has opened my eyes to another phenomenon: scoring. Of course you've seen beautiful artisan loaves in your local bakery with an impressive slit across the top or even a few criss-crossing marks, but, it turns out, delicate, gallery-worthy scoring is a whole, impressive branch of bread-art that I hadn't previously considered.

The photographs here are of my own humble attempts to produce scoring patterns, however, they are clunky and primitive in comparison to what you will find if you do a quick Google search for 'bread scoring patterns.'

If you want to make scoring patterns in your bread, it's a good idea to use a fairly low hydration dough (my standard recipe would be fine, at around 60%). Much higher than that makes it less likely that the dough will hold its shape, once scored.

To allow your scored design to really stand out, you should first dust the surface of the bread with flour (fine, white flour works well) before scoring. The contrast of the white flour with the exposed dough underneath the score marks makes the pattern really clear.

As your loaf grows, in the oven, the dough is likely to burst outwards and could, potentially, spoil your design. Professional bakers control this, and protect their design, by making one or two larger, deeper scores that will enable the loaf to open up without disrupting the artistic score marks. You could either incorporate an 'opening' score into the design, place it to one side, or score round the circumference of the loaf.

For the scoring, you need a really sharp blade. I have been using a scalpel with a fresh blade. Other people use a razor blade. There is a special tool called a baker's lame* that you can buy if you're going to get serious about scoring.
*Affiliate link to an example on Amazon. I don't own this product so I'm not recommending it, per se, just showing you what a baker's lame is.

The lame that I've linked to above has a curved blade, other lames have the blade straight. I think that's just a matter of preference (they do make slightly different scoring effects but I'm not really qualified to comment at this stage). Anyway, I'm really tempted to buy one: surely that will improve my scoring art no end?! (or is it just a case of a bad workman blaming his tools?!) I'll let you know if I get one.

Stencilling

And finally...

Stencilling on bread is just like using a stencil on any art work. You place a stencil over the dough and dust through the stencil in something that will make the design stand out. Flour is commonly used, as is cocoa powder. As with 'toppings' the dusting powder will fall off the bread, once cooked, unless it is well stuck on. Spraying the dough with water before dusting can help to keep the pattern in place.

You can buy stencils, of course (I really love the look of these ones*) but you could use any stencil for your baking. You could also lay other things over your bread to stencil around. One suggestion that appeals to me is to use leaves, I think that could look pretty.

*Affiliate link to a product I think looks good but do not personally own or have experience of.

Today I tried improvising with some Meccano:

The result is a bit too subtle.

I also tried using some wide-weave fabric that I had in my sewing box:

The larger holes seem to give a better result.

So, there you have it. Five great ways to make your bread look even more wonderful that it already is.

How To Bake Like A Professional

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 14 Feb 2021 14:28:00 +0000

The time has come. Want to take your homemade bread to new levels of amazing? This week I have been learning some new skills and I want to invite you along on the adventure.

Look, it's ok to make 'ok' bread. It really is. When time is tight and you need bread now, you just want it to be tasty and edible, with minimum fuss. That's what this site is about, mostly: how to use ingredients you can trust to produce reliable, delicious fresh bread with no hassle. It's the bish bash bosh approach to bread making, if you like.

If you're looking for speed and efficiency, follow this link to Get An Easy Recipe for a brisk and businesslike approach to baking the family's bread. Or use this Formula For Great Dough to create homemade bread recipes on any scale. But if you're feeling more adventurous, read on.

If you're ready to get a bit more technical and you want to know how to make your bread more professional, more attractive and better textured, I present to you:

My Life In Baking, by Clive Mellum*
*This is an affiliate link to the book on Amazon. I bought the Kindle version because it was slightly cheaper and I could download it immediately. Waiting: not my strong point.

Yes, I did mention it last week (in All You Need To Know About The Skilly Wash). Well spotted. And I may well mention it next week too because this book is changing the course of my baking journey.

It was recommended to me by Geof (Blame Geof. He started it) because he was telling me about the skilly wash. Of course I wanted to know more, so I bought the Kindle version of the book and was soon having my bread-making technique - erm - reshaped.

I have this Awesome Everyday Loaf recipe that I usually use at least once a week - maybe altering the balance of white and wholemeal flours, occasionally adding seeds or oats or something to make a change, but it's the same basic recipe, every time. And you know why I keep coming back to that recipe? Because it works every time. It requires minimal effort, it's (dare I say) foolproof and forgiving. It can cope with a bit too much water, or a bit too little water, for that matter. It's reliable. That's what I usually need: reliable outcomes, in time for lunch, whilst I get on with being a home-educating mum of three. No hassle.

But, surprisingly, I have absolutely loved experimenting with a bit of hassle, over the past week or so. This book is quite technical. Clive Mellum has had me calculating and measuring the exact temperature of the water I use. And there's no question of just 'sloshing in a bit' of anything, either. I've carefully measured the correct amount of water for the appropriate dough hydration (quite proud to say I did already know something of dough hydration before, but I'd never yet given it this level of attention). I've even been fastidiously kneading until the dough is 'silky smooth'.

Is this smooth enough for you, Mr M?

Mr Mellum also has a measured approach to what I had deemed my Simple Sourdough Solution - taking a bit of today's dough and keeping it to add to tomorrow's. It turns out that this is an Actual Thing. It's called 'pinchback' and there's a 'proper' way to do it (using a certain quantity of pinchback, added at a certain time).

Here's where I added the white pinchback to a white-wholemeal-mix dough:

And that had to be kneaded 'silky smooth' too, which is not entirely possible with wholemeal flour but I did my best:

And the shaping of the dough matters. (You can find lots of good advice on shaping in my ebook tutorial package, How To Bake Beautiful Bread) It's not just for looks. It affects the texture of the bread and the finish of the crust. Suddenly I have an extra incentive to spend a little longer on the shaping of the loaf.

Clive Mellum takes you through a 'workshop' to make several different shapes of bread: a cottage loaf, a plait and some pitta breads. I opted not to make the pittas but to keep that portion of dough as the pinchback, instead.

Here is the dough portioned out for three strands of a plait and one cottage loaf:

And here are the breads, proving:

My cottage loaf was a little wonky but I was pleased with how it held together.

In the oven:

Ta da! The finished breads:

They were quite dense - perhaps because of the wholemeal flour that I used, or maybe I could have let them prove for longer - but they were soft and tasty, with an excellent crust.

Reading this book is an eye-opener. Clive Mellum takes the things you think you know about making bread and throws new light on them. He doesn't just tell you what to do; he explains why. You'll emerge wiser, understanding what is happening to the flour and yeast at every stage of the process.

Better, though, than merely being more informed; you will be inspired. Mellum makes professional-standard bread baking accessible to home bakers. He guides you, matter-of-factly, through each step until you have created wonderful, professional looking (and tasting!) bread.

I don't tend to read bread making books. I am happy with my old bish bash bosh approach, handed down from my mum. My bread is generally good, or at least good enough. I'm not looking to spend hours on it, I just want nice wholesome food for my family. But, you know, it's been really fun to bake like a professional for a while. And there are certainly a good few tips and tricks that I will continue to use, even after the initial novelty has worn off.

Let me know if you try the Clive Mellum way too!

All You Need To Know About The Skilly Wash

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Crusts. Cracklingly crunchy, crispy crusts.

If you're looking to perfect your crust technique, this is the last piece of the puzzle. You've tried steam, you've tried high temperatures, you've read my post "How To Achieve An Amazing Crust" but have you tried the skilly wash?

Relatively few people have, I suspect. But it could be the game-changer where perfect crusts are concerned. So, what is the skilly wash? How do you make it? What is it supposed to look like? This article is for you.

I've been a little bit obsessed with crusts lately. It all started when I began experimenting with the use of a casserole dish to bake my bread. I wrote about it in the aforementioned 'Amazing Crust' article. This prompted Geof (thank you Geof - you've encouraged me to up my game!) to get in touch with the suggestion that I try a skilly wash, to improve my crust.

Skilly what, now? I googled it to no avail. I mean, there are a couple of references to it, online, but no instructions. Geof was kind enough to enlighten me and direct me to this excellent book, which I am now reading, avidly:

My Life In Baking, by Clive Mellum*

*This is an affiliate link to the book on Amazon.

Clive Mellum will take your bread baking skills to another level. I am sure to be writing about this book in more detail soon. I am learning many fascinating details and helpful insights (Ah ha! So that's why such-and-such works!) But for now, the skilly wash...

What Is A Skilly Wash?

A skilly wash is made from scalded cornflour. It is painted onto bread to help with crust formation, since the hydrated starch in the cornflour will first help to keep the crust supple and prevent it from setting too early and then contribute to the caramelisation that gives the crust its attractive brown colour and particular flavour.

A skilly wash is also a good 'glue' for sticking seeds onto the loaf, apparently (though I have not tried this myself). Here is a testimony to that effect, on someone's personal blog and also here is someone discussing the benefits of a skilly wash for a seed coat.

How To Make a Skilly Wash

To paraphrase Clive Mellum (but you really should read his instructions in context, in his book), the skilly wash is made by first mixing two teaspoonfuls of cornflour into a small amount of water, to make a paste. This is then scalded, by pouring 250 ml of boiling water over it and stirring well. The starch in the cornflour expands (as you know from making gravy or white sauce) and, in this case, the result is a translucent, thin paste. If the boiling water poured over the cornflour is not hot enough to scald the starch, you can complete the process in the microwave.

Here's my skilly wash, freshly made:

You can store it in the fridge for about a week and use it to paint many loaves.

Here's a free-form loaf, just turned out of its proving bowl, painted with the skilly wash:

You can see the finished loaf, after baking, at the top of this article. And here's another that I baked at the same time, also with the skilly wash and a fancy criss-cross pattern:

These crusts are coming out really well, if you like them crunchy and crispy.

Let me know if you try the skilly wash. And, as ever, please get in touch with any bread-baking questions or suggestions. My mission is to help you make your own bread, as simply as possible.

Happy baking!

Allinson's Country Grain Flour

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 30 Jan 2021 14:03:00 +0000

Today, I'm test-driving Allinson's Country Grain flour. It comes highly recommended by reader, Gill*, whose description made it sound so delicious that I just had to give it a try.
*Thanks Gill!

I usually buy just two types of flour, one white and one wholemeal, in huge sacks from Shipton Mill. But when Gill described the Allinson's Country Grain, I ~~couldn't resist~~ decided it was my duty to test it out and let the good readers of Freshly Baked know what it is like.

Incidentally, if anyone else would like to recommend their favourite flour to me, I will be happy to write more flour reviews in future. Just another ~~perk of the job~~ service I provide, you know, taste-testing bread. You're welcome.

Allinson's Country Grain is white flour with (according to their website) 'malted wheat flakes, rye flour and malted barley flour to give you a rustic bread with a rich texture and a nutty flavour.'

In other words, it's got bits in it.

Exactly the sort of bread I have been studiously avoiding since infancy.

Mum's bread was rustic, alright, (previously mentioned here) but it didn't have bits in. If ever my parents bought bread, which was next to never, it was always a huge disappointment if there were bits. Solid chunks seemed far too chewy within the otherwise perfectly soft bread. It absolutely ruined the bought bread experience, in my opinion.

Well, Gill had recommended this flour and, besides, I'm a grown-up now, I can appreciate texture, so I wasn't daunted by the bits but I thought my children might be.

(That's EP, in the picture, my middle daughter, who is 11 now!)

The flour smelled amazing when I was mixing up the dough. I used my standard formula for great dough, by the way. I think the lovely smell was the maltiness. I could see the bits(!) but they didn't look too daunting ;o)

The bread that I made is also pictured in How To Achieve An Amazing Crust, so I apologise if you've seen a couple of these pictures before.

I made a round, free-form loaf in the casserole dish* and a longer loaf on a baking tray, next to the casserole dish. I browned the loaves at a very high temperature and certainly achieved caramelisation. The one that never had a lid was positively burnt, if I'm absolutely honest. But it did taste good.
*That's an affiliate link to Amazon, meaning that if you click through, and end up buying stuff, I might get a small commission. It's equivalent to you buying me about half a cup of coffee but I'm hoping that if lots of people do that, I might earn a whole cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun.

Oops. Yes, it certainly does look 'well caramelised' doesn't it?!

I hoped I hadn't done Gill's flour a disservice by overcooking it. But you know what they say about the proof of the pudding...

I was pretty pleased with the texture inside. It has what they called a fairly open crumb (biggish air bubbles: big air bubbles apparently being the Holy Grail of bread making). It still had that delicious, malty smell too. But what about the flavour? And the bits, I expect you're wondering.

Well, the thing I used to hate about bits in bread is the contrast between the ridiculously soft dough and the impenetrably chewy grains. Here, there was no such problem since the bread itself was sufficiently robust to carry the added texture (plus, I am not a fussy child anymore). I found the bread to be very tasty and the bits went without comment, even from my children (not as fussy as I used to be, eh?!)

This was a delicious loaf and a loved the sweetness of it: I even went back to check the ingredients for added sugar, but no, the sweetness is purely from the malted grains. I really enjoyed having a change from my usual loaf. I usually go for speed, reliability and, as mentioned above, bulk purchase of flour. It was lovely to have something different this time and I certainly plan to buy this flour again in future.

Gill has since told me that she likes to make rolls, from this flour, to have with soup. I only made loaves and I am looking forward to getting another bag and making rolls, next time.

So, I agree with Gill, a huge thumbs up for the Allinson's Country Grain! Let me know if you try it.

How To Achieve An Amazing Crust (It's So Easy!)

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 24 Jan 2021 11:54:00 +0000

Want to make super-crusty bread at home? This article is for you. I have a simple technique. No hassle. Works every time :o)

I've been experimenting with crustiness this week. Whenever I buy good* bread it always has this amazing, thick, crunchy crust.
*Not the cheap floppy stuff that comes pre-sliced in a plastic bag, though I do buy that sometimes. It has its place.

By 'good' bread, I mean the kind that you pay a bit more for because it is made locally, in small batches. It may be labelled 'artisan' and it may be sourdough. It may be covered in oats or seeds. It probably isn't tin-shaped and it probably has some pretty marks cut into it, or the concentric ring markings left by a proving basket. Maybe it has all those things. It certainly has a robust crust that is dark and flavoursome, having been caramelised almost to the point of being burnt.

My mum made the bread in our house when I was little. My packed lunch always included stout, wholemeal sandwiches that were a workout for the jaws. I wouldn't have had it any other way. I did not envy the flabby, colourless sandwiches of my peers although I could see that the other children did have a certain speed advantage when it came to finishing their lunch and getting out to play.

It was there, in the school lunch hall, aged four, that I first began to consider crusts. Children all around me would carefully nibble up to the edge of their sandwiches and discard - what?! As far as I could see, the edge was only slightly less soft than the rest of their insubstantial bread. I pondered on this strange lack of effort as I stoically ploughed through my homemade bread. I rather liked crusts. I still do.

Good bought bread, as I was saying, has a great crust because commercial bread ovens are designed to create the perfect baking conditions (I'll get to those in a moment) but, never fear, I've been experimenting again and there are some things that we can do to replicate these conditions at home. In fact, I've honed a really simple, no fuss technique that works pretty bloomin' well, every time.

Incidentally, there is a lot of information on line about crusts. It makes interesting reading but I'm not going to try and go into all the science here. My aim is simply to share the technique that I have found most successful with the least hassle. That said, it helps to know that a good crust depends on sufficiently caramelising the starches in the flour on the surface of the bread. This requires an even heat and a high temperature. You don't want the crust to form too fast, however, since that will restrict the bread from rising properly and make for a less fluffy loaf. Those enviable bought loaves that are fluffy on the inside with a dark, crunchy crust have been given sufficient temperature and time to spring up in the early stages of cooking before the crust is allowed to dry out and brown.

Assuming that you have used good quality ingredients to make a decent bread dough, two things seem to be important in creating a good crust:

Heat - You need to help your dough to reach a high temperature as rapidly as possible, once it goes into the oven. Ideally, you want to distribute the heat evenly. This will enable the 'oven spring' - an initial expansion of the air bubbles to inflate the dough in the early stages of cooking, making it light inside.
Moisture - You need to ensure that your crust doesn't dry out too fast, preventing the bread from rising fully. In a commercial oven, this is achieved with jets of steam.

Don't worry: I have a master plan.

To give you context for the master plan, here are some ways that you could easily obtain optimum heat and moisture in your oven. (Read on for my overall easiest way.)

To maximise the amount of heat going into your bread, and distribute it evenly, you could use a baking stone, which you preheat as the oven is warming up. I do not have a baking stone but I have found that preheating my baking tray or loaf tins has a similar effect. (Also, preheating loaf tins seems to prevent sticking - nice side effect!)

As for moisture, there are various ways you could create steam in the oven. Suggestions include: putting a bowl of water on the bottom of the oven, putting ice-cubes on the bottom of the oven, using a spray bottle to create mist in the oven.

Those techniques work and, anyway, you just have to do the best you can with the equipment you have.

Here's what I do (super simple technique)

The best success I've had with great crust creation has been using my Le Creuset casserole dish* (the link is to the same one as mine, on Amazon, but I think any heavy cast-iron casserole dish with a lid would work well. Maybe even a Pyrex casserole dish would be good enough.)
*This is an affiliate link. If you buy anything on Amazon after clicking through with this link, I may get a commission. So please buy something really expensive. Thanks ;o)

You need to preheat it in the oven so that when the bread is ready to bake, you can pop it onto the hot metal surface and it sizzles. Then you put the lid on to start the cooking. The heavy lid traps enough steam in the casserole dish to slow down crust formation and let the bread rise sufficiently. After 15 or 20 minutes (it's not crucial) you remove the lid and let the crust begin to dry out and caramelise. By the time the cooking time is complete, your bread will be crusty all over and a tasty, dark brown colour. And because you pre-heated the casserole dish, the loaf just pops off the surface as easy as anything. Bonus!

Now, I know everyone has their own way of doing things, and I'm not even saying mine is the best way, but it's the most hassle-free way I've found of getting great results.

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have a great technique to recommend too.

More!

Beginners, this book is for you.

It is your blueprint for your first loaf.

You are only a few hours away from the smell of freshly baked bread in your own kitchen.

I will guide you.

You can buy the First Loaf ebook here.

And here is my ever-expanding recipe collection:

30+ original recipes from Freshly Baked in a printable, easy-read format.

You can buy The Recipes ebook here.

Pizza Rolls - Perfect Picnic Food

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 14:21:00 +0000

Pizza rolls: the perfect lunch (or snack) solution when you want bread in a hurry. Choose whatever filling you like and they are picnic-ready, straight from the oven. Recipe below.

But what's this about picnics?! Brrrr. It's chilly, grey winter here. Only the fact that we're in Tier 3, with the associated insistence that we socialise Outdoors Only, could make me even contemplate eating al fresco.

Pizza rolls are great for picnics but they're also perfect for indoor lunches and snacks in any location. Phew. You can put away that umbrella.

Their main advantage, over sandwiches, say, is that they come out of the oven ready filled. I mean, I love to make dough balls if I need bread in a hurry but they require a little something on the side: some guacamole or humus, perhaps. Pizza rolls can stand alone.

Not only are they easy and quick to make, you can customise them to your heart's content with any combination of fillings you have to hand or can dream up on the spot. I even made a sweet version last week (Festive Spiced Rolls - Iced Cinnamon Swirls) and they were deeeeelicious.

For the savoury version, you're going to need a basic bread dough (you could use these instructions for an everyday sort of bread dough) to start with. I'm a bit of a stickler for wholemeal but I made my latest batch of pizza rolls with half wholemeal and half plain flour. The ratio is:

500g flour
1 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
315g water

You could make the dough more interesting by adding herbs or spices. A combination of smoked paprika and basil works well. A pinch of chilli would be good too.

Mix the ingredients together and leave them to rise in the usual fashion then divide the dough into two pieces and roll each section out into an oblong.

Now add your toppings.

Here we have Bolognese sauce from a jar, basil, thyme and bouillon powder:

The other batch was oregano, bouillon powder, garlic powder and olives:

This would be a great moment for cheese, if you're emulating a traditional pizza. You could use ham too, or small pieces of bacon. I'm vegan so that's why my pizza rolls are slightly un-pizza-like. I don't go for vegan cheese and fake meat. I sometimes like nutritional yeast flakes*. Michael Greger's Nutty Parm, found in the How Not To Die Cookbook*, is also a really great cheese alternative.

Whatever you choose, be sure to add plenty of seasoning because flavours get lost in the cooking.

Roll up your dough and cut it into sections.

I had some trouble with the olive version, resulting in folding, rather than rolling. No matter; the filling was on the inside.

You can make them as fat or as thin as you like.

Lay the sections on a baking sheet to prove until springy to touch.

Bake them at 230^oC for five minutes and 210^oC for a further 10 minutes, or until nicely golden. Voila.

The olive ones were really tasty but the tomato ones were our favourite.

This made a tasty lunch for us, along with some homemade soup and some fruit. Let me know if you try them and what fillings you chose.

Something Else

For a collection of all the Freshly Baked recipes (well, nearly all, I'm working on it!) in convenient printable format, you need my ebook The Recipes, available for immediate download.

*Links marked with an asterisk are affiliate links. This is how I hope to one day make millions from this website. But I can't bring myself to sell advertising for things I don't believe in. Everything I link to is something I think is good. I'm enthusiastic about everything 'Doctor Greger' at the moment (hence the How Not To Die link above).

Festive Spiced Rolls - Iced Cinnamon Swirls

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 05 Dec 2020 13:17:00 +0000

Spicy, fruity bread swirls: easy to make, easy to eat(!) and easy to customise. Delicious for a festive afternoon tea. Read on for the recipe.

The brief: Lure my children to a live-streaming concert of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Keep them there for the whole concert.

Solution? A roaring fire, hot chocolate and festive iced buns. Though, in the interests of absolute honesty, I must say that the bread was so freshly made as to almost miss the concert entirely. We only just managed to scoff them before 'Winter' was over.

My eldest is learning the Vivaldi on her violin so we thought, as parents are apt to do, that we would ruin her weekend by making her listen to a live performance of the same. We even had the audacity to suggest that such beautiful music would benefit all our children.

Since the idea of a lovely family time by the fire was met with the customary sighing and eye-rolling, I resorted to the customary persuasive tactic: bribery. If you make an offer attractive enough, they will be there. And by 'attractive' I do mean sugary.

These rolls would be great for a cosy, grown-up afternoon tea or as festive fireside fare for all the family.

Here's the recipe.

Festive Spiced Rolls - Iced Cinnamon Swirls

I mixed up some of my standard bread dough (this is my go-to bread recipe). You need 500g of flour, in total (I opted for half wholemeal and half plain flour) with a teaspoonful of instant dried yeast, a teaspoonful of salt and 315g water.

To this I also added some mixed spice (about 2 tbsp) and some ground nutmeg (about 2 tsp). You can experiment with flavours here: perhaps you'd like to add cocoa powder, instead, to make chocolatey rolls? Or make them with extra cinnamon. What about stirring in some dried orange peel or orange essence? The possibilities are endless. You do need to create a strong flavour, though, or it will be lost in the cooking. It's no good being subtle with flavoured bread.

The dough needs to rise, as usual, and then comes the fun part.

Divide the dough in half and roll each portion out to a long oblong onto which you will sprinkle your chosen fillings.

This one has cinnamon and sugar.

On the second portion of dough, I created a different filling.

This one has candied peel and crystallised ginger.

Then you gently roll up the dough.

Cut it into sections and place them on a baking tray.

Some of them were more swirly than others.

Leave them to prove for a while. I'd say about half an hour to an hour, until they are springy to touch. Or until you're running out of time and simply Must Bake Them Now.

Bake at about 230^oC for five minutes and then about 200^oC for a further 10-12 minutes, until nicely golden.

They look less photogenic when baked.

But then...

Drizzled with icing, they look much more delicious.

This was just icing sugar, mixed with water. Nothing fancy. But I think it adds something. It certainly makes the rolls more 'attractive' ;o)

So, there you have it. Something delicious for a lazy Sunday afternoon, perhaps?

Let me know if you try them.

More...

If you are looking for recipes, my ever-growing collection is available in The Recipes ebook here. It's a collection of (almost*) all my recipes, in a clear, printable format, to save you scrolling past all the pictures and chit-chat on the website to get to the main information.
*I add recipes to it, periodically, so it's not always totally up to date, but you'll always have access to the newest version. On that point, the very latest version of the book has an embedded link, so you can easily obtain the latest update. Please email me if you bought the book a while ago so I can send you the most up to date version.

Homemade Savoury Crackers Four Ways

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 18:07:00 +0000

Delicious, homemade, savoury crackers. Surprisingly easy. Endlessly versatile. Recipe below.

Last time I made crackers. Oh dear. Tasty, yes, but not for those with delicate teeth. They were a little hard to bite. In an attempt to make them crisp, I had created concrete.

"They're nice dipped in soup," I offered, somewhat lamely. But it turned out they were also waterproof. No matter how long I waited with my cracker submerged, it didn't get any softer.

My homemade crackers were no competition for the light, crunchy delights from the supermarket.

So my children continued to munch their way through mountains of bought crackers. And I continued to shake my head at flimsy whiteness (not a wholegrain in sight!) and the addition of palm oil (why?!) not to mention plastic packaging (shopping is quite a minefield). Until last week when Colin* mentioned that he'd been making herby rye crackers and I felt inspired to give crackers another try.

*Who's Colin? Colin was kind enough to reply to my newsletter last week and it turns out he has quite a story...

Not wishing to leave success to chance, I had a quick Google and found this cracker recipe which I used as the basis for mine.

Homemade Savoury Crackers

The ingredients were:

1 cup wholemeal flour

2 cups plain flour

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp bouillon powder (we had no salt, I had to improvise)

4 tsp sunflower oil (the recipe said olive oil but I save the nice stuff for salad)

2 cups of water (the recipe said one cup but my flour was very thirsty)

Then, fairly obviously, it's just a case of combining the ingredients and perhaps (as I had to) adjusting the amount of water to make a workable dough. Workable, in this case, means 'fairly stiff and not too sticky'.

You can divide the mixture into four equal portions, in order to make four flavours of cracker. For each portion, roll out the dough into a rectangular shape, as thinly as you can. The recipe I was following said 1/8th of an inch or thinner.

Then you brush the dough with water and sprinkle on whatever seeds and seasoning you would like to use. TIP: gently use a rolling pin to press the seeds into the dough and help them to stick better.

I kept one batch of crackers plain. The other three batches had toppings as follows:

Flax seeds, sesame seeds, fennel seeds, dried parsley, salt and pepper

Dried herbs: thyme, parsley and basil. Salt and pepper

Flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, salt and pepper

Then I had what might be a genius idea. For the speediest crackers, here's a trick.

Top Trick For Speedy Cracker Production

For each batch, transfer the entire rolled-out dough to a baking sheet. I used my trusty non-stick baking liners* too. And, already in situ, gently cut the dough into cracker-sized pieces, like so:

*affiliate link

Crackers aren't going to spread, so there's no need to faff about, moving them individually or spreading them out. They can bake in this position, no problem.

As instructed in the recipe, I pricked the crackers with a fork to help them stay flat during cooking.

Bake at a fairly high temperature for about 12 minutes or until nicely browned.

Admittedly, some of mine were somewhat unevenly baked but I quite enjoyed the variety of some being extra browned.

A quick stint on the cooling rack ensured that the crackers became nice and crispy.

The plain ones resemble some of those bought ones that my children love so much.

The mixed seed topping worked out really well.

And here's Mr P's lunch/snack by way of a serving suggestion:

So, there you have it: homemade savoury crackers, four ways. Or, infinite ways, really, because you can certainly adapt this recipe to your own preferences. Let me know if you have a go. And thanks to Colin for the inspiration :o)

More From Freshly Baked

If you're ready to make your first loaf, but would like some extra guidance, I've shared a foolproof recipe and detailed step-by-step instructions in my ebook: First Loaf.

My ever-increasing recipe collection is available in my ebook: The Recipes.

Thanks so much to everyone who has already bought a copy!

Are You Missing Out?

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

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Flour Supplies in Lockdown and Soft Pretzels

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Sun, 17 May 2020 20:52:00 +0000

If you're wondering where to buy flour, in lockdown, I have good news. I know where the flour supplies are. *Taps side of nose and winks*

I have also made pretzels, which counts as more good news because they are delicious, moreish, and adaptable: you can make them savoury or sweet. Would you like them sprinkled with seasalt, glazed with sugar and cinnamon, dipped in chocolate or...? Scroll along for the recipe. But not so fast!
In this post, there is also dinner in a box, a trip to the countryside and an enterprising guinea pig. You don't want to miss the enterprising guinea pig.

Firstly, the flour. In my last post, Where To Buy Yeast In Lockdown, I shared news of yeast supplies. In fact, those very same suppliers also have flour, in most cases, so please, do check out the links in that post, thereby helping to support small businesses who are struggling at this time.

Prior to learning about all those options for flour supplies, I had been returning and returning to the Shipton Mill website, where they are gradually releasing delivery slots in order to manage the unprecedented demand for flour. Finally, on a tip-off from a reader (thanks Ken!) I managed to visit Shipton Mill at a moment when some delivery slots were available and secure myself some sacks of flour.

I ordered 16kg of white flour and 25kg of wholemeal. I think I must be properly grown-up now, to say that I was genuinely excited by the arrival of my flour delivery. And my children were thrilled (I'm sure) to learn that wholemeal bread was back on the menu. We do like a robust slice. My daughter had been waiting ages for her wobbly tooth to come out. Job done! Incidentally, the tooth fairy said that, what with social distancing and all, she'd rather leave the cash on the chest of drawers at the far side of the room and it was alright, she'd see about collecting the tooth some other time, so that was ~~a lot easier than waiting for the child to fall asleep, avoiding the squeaky floorboard and then attempting to be subtle about groping around under the pillow~~ kind of her.

EDIT

Here's what I wrote in my newsletter on the subject of flour from Shipton Mill. I think it's useful information so I've decided to add it here:

It was during the first (UK) lockdown that I decided to order flour from Shipton Mill. At that time it felt pretty awkward to go shopping, there were no online shopping slots and I couldn't even get flour in my local shops. It made sense to buy in bulk and reduce the number of supermarket trips I was making.

The Shipton Mill website offers a variety of flours. For my first order, I had to take a guess as to which would be the best flour for my needs. In case you are faced with the same dilemma, here's what I know.

For white flour, I chose "Finest Bakers White Bread Flour No.1 (101)" in a 16kg sack. This proved to be an excellent flour for all our baking: bread, cakes, biscuits etc. For wholemeal, I wanted to get an even larger sack (25kg) so that really left me with a choice of two. I first chose "A Strong Canadian And UK Blended Wholemeal Flour" and it was ok, but not great. I couldn't get it to hold its shape very well and we chomped our way through a series of rather dry, dense loaves. The second time round, I ordered the "Organic 100% Wholemeal Flour (205)" which has proved to be much better and, for me, makes a nicer loaf.

We store our sacks of flour in plastic bins from Ikea, using a measuring cup for scooping out what we need. The flour has kept well, in our kitchen, for as long as it took us to use it up (a few months).

The other thing worth knowing about Shipton Mill is that you can get a 15% discount if you submit a recipe to their website - definitely worth doing. It doesn't have to be complicated: just something you've baked and have photographed, since they also want you to share an image.

It's been a good week for deliveries:

What did you get? What did you get?

Ta dah!

Looks better out of the packaging:

Karma Kitchen Boxed.

Curries, naans and rice. A take-away curry but not a take-away. Frozen food. A meal, ready; but so much more than a ready-meal. (Frozen ready-meals. Shudder.) This is Karma Kitchen Boxed (Punjabi curries cooked, immediately frozen and delivered to your door). I'm very taken with the idea. Decent dinners, cooked by someone else. And, incidentally, vegan.* We have missed some of our favourite restaurants and take-aways since lockdown. Karma Kitchen is still cooking and, furthermore, they are delivering their delicious Punjabi food nationwide. This is The Answer as far as I'm concerned. (The Question was: What convenience food could I eat when I want a break from cooking, that would be tasty, nutritious and reasonably priced?) And no, I am not being paid to say this. I only mention it in case you, too, would like to treat yourself to a yummy curry. Ordering Karma Kitchen Boxed was the kindest thing I did for myself this week.

*I've been vegan ever since I read 'How Not To Die'.

The day we ate Karma Kitchen was a day that we Went Out. We went in the car, to the countryside. It was flowery:

And springy:

And we saw where a squirrel had been having a picnic:

It was lovely to return, exhausted from our countryside walking, to a meal that only had to be heated up.

Now, speaking of spring growth, here's the aforementioned enterprising guinea pig:

Whoops. Petal found my vegetable crops. She's probably had her eye on them for a while. Today, they were apparently deemed large enough to harvest. Peas, carrots and radishes. When I suggested she might like to stop sitting on my seedlings, she went for backup.

Looks like an organised gang.

Luckily, they don't eat pretzels.

Ah, the pretzels.

Thoroughly un-photogenic, but yummy.

They are easy to make. Basically it's a fairly normal bread-dough, some fancy shaping, a dunk in boiling water and a stint in the oven.

600g plain flour
1 tsp instant dried yeast
1 tsp salt
380g liquid made up of a slosh of oil, some milk (I used soya) and water

Put all the ingredients in a big bowl. Mix well.

Allow to rise for about an hour, or until considerably bigger:

Now, shaping...

This recipe makes 16 pretzels. Divide the dough into 16 pieces and pre-shape them by rolling them up like little Swiss-rolls. Once the pre-shaped rolls have rested for a while, roll them into thin lengths, about 50cm long.

The traditional pretzel shape is achieved by crossing the strand over like so...

...Giving it a twist...

...And folding the twist back on itself.

Some of ours were more beautiful than others.

Let the shaped pretzels prove and rise for a while on a baking tray (or two). These trays are lined with reusable baking sheets to provide a non-stick surface.

They are risen enough when the dough is springy to the touch.

The benefit of the shaping is that it holds together well for the next step.

Prepare a large pan of hot water and add in three tablespoonfuls of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).

Place the pretzels into the pan, a few at a time. Cook for a few minutes, to develop the chewy surface. The pretzels sink at first and float when done. You can leave them in the pan for a few minutes (even when floating and supposedly 'done') if you like a chewier crust.

Place the boiled pretzels back on the baking tray and sprinkle with, well, whatever you decided upon back in paragraph two. We used chunky sea salt.

Bake in a hot oven (230^oC) for at least 10 minutes. Ours looked rather pale after 10 minutes so we left them in for another five. And another. After 20 minutes of cooking time, they looked closer to the colour of shop-bought pretzels and I took them out because I didn't want to let them get too dry.

I have it on good authority that these were the Best Pretzels Ever.

The pretzel recipe is soon to be appearing in my recipe ebook, The Recipes, where you can have all my bread recipes in an easy-access, printable format (no scrolling past guinea pig pictures to get to the key information). I say 'soon to be appearing' because this is a growing collection of recipes that I update at intervals. Whenever you buy the book, you'll always have access to all the recipes, even ones I haven't thought of yet, because you can always go back and download the latest version.

If you just want one, basic recipe and a clear, foolproof method to set you on your bread-baking journey, then First Loaf is for you. It's the best place to start if you're wondering whether you can bake a loaf of bread: you can. I'll help you. You'll love it ;o)

Where To Buy Yeast In Lockdown

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Tue, 12 May 2020 21:19:00 +0000

It seems that yeast is not readily available in supermarkets. Yeast online tends to be in tiny portions at crazy prices, or weeks away, travelling from afar. What to do? In this post, I have some options for you: reasonably priced yeast, available stocks and supplied from within the UK*. Sound good?
*Apologies to readers elsewhere, I can only comment on our local situation at this time. Feel free to comment below if you know anything about yeast supplies near you.

You should also read Baking In Lockdown When You've Got No Yeast, where I offer suggestions for baking bread without yeast.

Since writing that post, I have received several helpful emails, suggesting sources of yeast that seem reasonably priced and available. Wouldn't it be better to support these genuine, caring (and no doubt struggling at this time) enterprises, rather than the people trying to cash in with overpriced yeast on eBay?

David, from Norfolk Preserves, got in touch this morning to say that he has a good supply of dried yeast, strong bread flour, plain and self raising flour. His shop, Norfolk Preserves, is a small, family run business, selling homemade jams and preserves, amongst other things (including those all-important baking ingredients). I've got all the yeast and flour I need just now, but I've got my eye on some pickled onions and some delicious looking marmalade!

Jane recommends Ingredients for Cooks, also a family-run business, with excellent customer service. There is a minimum order charge of £40 here and a delivery charge of £7, so probably better if you're happy to buy in bulk. Their website looks lovely: plenty of tempting goodies. Jane says she bought a 16kg sack of flour, which helped to make up the value of the order. Of course you could always split an order with a neighbour, to help share the cost.

Jane also directed me to A Million Thanks. This is a social enterprise run by baker, Steve, whose bakery business sales dropped to zero, overnight, when the UK went into lockdown. He's buying surplus ingredients from struggling bakers and wholesalers and repackaging them in smaller quantities to sell to people stuck at home in lockdown. The profits are going to buy and distribute delicious treats for frontline workers. How lovely is that?

Mary tells me that King Arthur Flour now has yeast back in stock. She also reminded me that you can make your own sourdough starter, and cultivate wild yeast.

Model railway blogger, Ray, at Silver Sidelines, tells me he bought Fermipan Red from Kent Foods. He ordered in bulk: 20 packets, working out at just £3.36 per 500g packet, including the delivery charge. It does keep well. I think he's planning to freeze most of his order. Again, you could split an order with friends to make this an economical option.

So! Plenty of options for yeast, as it turns out. Thank you to everyone who has offered information on this. If I get anymore tip-offs, I'll update this post.

Baking In Lockdown When You've Got No Yeast

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Mon, 11 May 2020 21:14:00 +0000

Yeast! Where are you? Lots of people are emailing me about yeast, this week. It seems that yeast supplies are dwindling fast. I have a few ideas for baking without yeast, which I will share with you. And a (maybe?) helpful link for possible yeast purchasing, though who knows, with the vagaries of supply and demand.

*** Also see Where To Buy Yeast In Lockdown ***

For me, the problem is not yeast. I have a large bag of Fermipan Red on the go and one unopened, but I'm finding that it's pretty hard to bake bread without flour. Bread is impossible, in fact, without flour. I have planted some wheat in the back garden but so far it isn't doing much. I fear that decent, wholemeal bread is months away.

My family are clearly devastated to have their healthy eating regime interrupted. Only yesterday, my son was asking, through mouthfuls of soft white, smothered in honey, whether I had managed to procure any wholemeal flour. Alas, I replied that my local store only had plain white, to which he punched the air in what I assume was an 'aw shucks' sort of motion. Fluffy, light white bread it is, unfortunately, replacing tasty, robust wholemeal for the foreseeable. Needs must.

Is my doughball looking at me strangely?!

So, let's assume that you've found some flour with which to bake. Last week it was expensive organic pasta flour, for me. I've also found myself incorporating small proportions of buckwheat flour and gram flour into my bread: enough to eke out the precious supplies of wheat flour but not so much as to cause consternation amongst the delicate tastebuds of my offspring. Stealth tactics. Now, what about yeast?

If you can't get yeast in your local supermarket and are looking online, I have found this Fermipan Red on Amazon. It's expensive, compared to what you might have paid in a supermarket, but in this scenario, supermarket is not an option. There is cheaper yeast online but the delivery times (I think from China) are very long. This one has an estimated delivery time of days rather than months. If you're desperate: "Gimme yeast! Any yeast at any price!" this might be worth going for.

*UPDATE* I've just had a lovely email from subscriber, David, at Norfolk Preserves and they have a good supply of dried yeast and flour. Look no further!***

Another option might be to bake without yeast. More on that in a moment.

But first, what about this?! Here's someone taking focaccia to new levels of loveliness. Feeling inspired, I have made some artistic(ish) focaccia of my own:

Naturally, some people* did not appreciate the range of vegetables ~~spoiling~~ adorning their focaccia and Mr P pointed out that broccoli doesn't smell the greatest when you open the bread box on Day 2, but it was an interesting variation from the standard focaccia that I usually make with garlic, rosemary, sea-salt and/or oregano in various combinations.
*who shall remain nameless but I'll give you one guess.

Something else that pleased me greatly this week was discovering that a friend of mine has been building a new business without telling anyone and this is the result:

I love this peach-wood comb. Not only is it plastic free (yay!) but it's also really robust (have you seen how much hair I have?! I need a robust comb!) And, no, I wasn't sponsored (or even asked) to say this, I just want to give a shout out to a new business, starting up in these most difficult of times.

Mane Tamer Grooming is, in fact, about beard-care. Alas, having not managed to grow a decent beard yet, I cannot benefit from the full beard-grooming product range, but I can say that this lovely, eco-friendly little comb has been able to tame even my mane, and that takes some doing. I think I'll spare you the hairy selfie but please tell all your bearded friends about premium handmade beard products, I'd love to see my friend get his business off the ground.

Now, what was I saying about bread? Ah yes, no yeast. What can you do?

Well, there's soda bread - 'bread' made with baking soda as the raising agent, rather than yeast. I made some once and I found it rather dry. I'm not a fan and I haven't got a go-to recipe to offer you. Many people seem to love it, so have a try, by all means. I prefer another no-yeast option; flatbread.

There are many types of 'flatbread' and not all of them are unleavened. Unleavened (not risen, therefore no yeast) versions include tortilla, chapati and roti - tasty ways to have bread with a meal. Unleavened flatbreads tend to be made with only flour, water and some seasoning. They are generally cooked in a frying pan, often dry, without oil.

Here's my very simple flatbread recipe (used as tortillas to have with chilli) that I like to make as wraps for various savoury fillings. They can be frozen and rapidly defrosted in the toaster. They can also be used as bases for garlic bread or pizza (of sorts). Very versatile.

I did a little hunting around online and found a couple of other no-yeast flatbread recipes for your delectation:

Here's a really easy flatbread recipe at Jo's Kitchen Larder.

And this is a lovely looking recipe for chapati at Kitchen Sanctuary.

Both of those websites seem like friendly places to find nice recipes. I enjoyed having a browse around.

If you have got flour and yeast, have you baked your first loaf yet? And how is baking in lockdown working out for you?

Baking With Pasta Flour - Easter Buns

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Mon, 13 Apr 2020 21:00:00 +0000

Flour shortages meant that this year's Hot Cross Buns were made with pasta flour. This was a first for me. Never, in the ordinary course of things, would I choose organic durum wheat pasta flour, at three times the price of my usual flour. But, it was either that or gluten-free.

When I went to the shop, we had a little discussion; the shopkeeper, another customer and I, about whether pasta flour would be any good for white sauce, or baking in general. Upon studying the label (Protein: 12g per 100g) I decided that it seemed reasonably 'strong' and bought a couple of bags, to give it a go. Better than nothing, eh?

This is the flour I bought. Durum wheat is just another type of wheat, similar to the wheat commonly ground into bread flour. The protein content and hardness of the grain make it particularly suitable for making pasta, apparently, but I suspected it would be good enough for other types of baking too. This is clearly marketed as pasta flour, but my eagle-eyes also spotted the words 'and pizza', which is basically bread, so definitely worth taking a chance.

Before I made hot cross buns, I made a loaf of ordinary white bread, with my new-found pasta flour.

This was the dough. Looks normal enough, doesn't it? Nothing untoward about the durum wheatiness.

This was the resulting loaf, after we had eaten most of it and I remembered that I had wanted to take a picture. Just an ordinary loaf, really, albeit an expensive one.

It had a good crumb*:
*You what? I discuss 'crumb' about half-way down this article on dough hydration, if you're curious.

And it made excellent toast:

There was no discernible difference from my normal flour (except that I am more of a wholemeal person and this was most definitely white, much to everyone else's delight.)

In other news, it was Easter. Quite strange not to be celebrating it with a big family meal. We could easily have been eleven round the table, had it not been for Social Distancing.

Last week I was (annoyingly, probably) chirpy and positive about us all being at home together, enjoying the calmer schedule. This week I found I was a bit less delighted with the situation and a bit less Laura Markham in my parenting. Cabin fever was mentioned. The long-weekend for Easter came just at the right moment for me to drop any attempt at a schedule and give us all a break.

And special chocolate arrived, courtesy of a very lovely kind friend. A little bit of special chocolate does seem to help in so many situations.

Vegan. Deliciousness. When Ailey Mae's is open for business again, I'm their new biggest fan.

Spring is very much springing. We had frogspawn appear in our pond this year (as opposed to being put there by us, in previous years). The few tadpoles that we are observing indoors are growing fast. My daughter caught this excellent shot of a tadpole smile:

And the hot cross buns were delicious.

The pasta flour performed like any other wheat flour that I have used. No doubt an expert would be able to point to subtle differences but, from a practical point of view, yummy buns were made and consumed, which was all that mattered to me.

Conclusion? Durum wheat flour is perfectly fine to bake with, if a little pricy. I'd go so far as to assert that any wheat flour would be ok for bread. I said as much in this article 'Do I Really Need Strong Flour?' (Spoiler: The answer is no.) Maybe not prize-winning, professional-standard bread (although who knows?!) but none-the-less tasty and family-feeding in these times when we might be stuck with the last flour in the shop.

How's the flour situation with you?

How To Bake An Amazing First Loaf

noreply@blogger.com (Mrs P) — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 20:45:00 +0000

My husband baked bread. This lovely loaf was made by him. And very delicious it was too. He's working from home (you know, The Virus) and, frankly, I think he was tired of my healthy wholemeal bread. So, upon finding a dearth of bread in the supermarket, he took matters into his own hands. The children were delighted to have white bread, of course, and it was gone within a few hours, but now that someone else has successfully baked, there's every chance it may happen again. Lovely to be baked for. Hint hint.

It was his first loaf, I believe. Evidently he is not alone in pursuing a new-found desire to bake. Flour has been selling out in the shops, Freshly Baked has received an influx of new subscribers (Hello! Welcome! Make yourself at home) and my inbox has been abuzz with queries (lovely to hear from you!). I've been inspired into action again: not only to write this update but to complete a whole new book. More on that later.

I must confess that I am quite liking this social distancing thing. I am naturally inclined to stay at home, alone, with a book. I'm not missing the frenetic pace of our erstwhile schedule: everyone being in one place is much simpler. We've been a home-educating family for years, so, even with the sudden cessation of extra-curricular activities, socialising and trips to the park, we're already somewhat equipped to cope with life spent largely in each others' company. I've always said, the biggest challenge of home education is not the academic content but the relationships. If you're finding it tough to spend so much time with your children, I heartily recommend Laura Markham at ahaparenting.com to help you through this challenging time. Her books, Calm Parent, Happy Kids and Calm Parent, Happy Siblings have been invaluable in my quest not to catastrophically melt down and send them all to boarding school.

It helps that the sun has been shining and it's been quite mild. The trampoline is my new favourite place to exercise.

The view skyward yesterday was The Best.

It wasn't only my husband who decided to bake this week. My daughter was similarly ~~desperate for white-bread pizza~~ inspired. She really does love pizza.

I made dough balls.

They were hasty but tasty. By which I mean, I didn't spend much time shaping them, so they look rather un-photogenic, but they were a welcome accompaniment to our soup, none the less.

I looked pleased with myself anyway(!)

With all this baking going on at home, and all these new enquiries to Freshly Baked, I thought it might be useful to write a definitive guide to baking bread: clear, step-by-step instructions to help new bakers with their first loaf.

Maybe, having tackled 'Fresh Bread In 20 Minutes' you're ready to move on, raise your game and gain new skills. First Loaf is for you.

In it, you'll find everything I know about baking loaves: My top tips to make the process as simple as possible, answers to the questions I'm always asked, solutions to the problems you might encounter.

What's your ideal loaf? Dense and chewy? Flavoured with fruit? Packed with seeds? First Loaf will also give you the inspiration and know-how to bake your perfect loaf (or loaves - why stop at one?) so there's plenty of opportunity to take your bread-baking skills to the next level.