New cookbooks and a lovely loaf

 

A most welcome and generous gift from a goodie bag (work-related). I do like the Vietnamese eateries in Shoreditch but have never actually cooked Vietnamese food. This book makes it all sound very simple so I’m off to shop for ingredients shortly. It’s also most welcome as my weekend cooking (weekend cooking = more time consuming and ‘elaborate’ recipes) has been very much Jerusalem inspired in recent months with an occasional Hugh FW, St. John, Moro and Nigel Slater thrown in. And, considering that I have most of Nigel’s books since Real Fast Food, it’s a bit odd that the two Tender books completely passed me by. This one centres on fruit and has some wonderful recipes for sweet and savoury dishes. Expect lots of apples, pears and quince posts coming up, I do love a quince. And medlar, if the greengrocer happens to have them. Contemplating making medlar jelly although not entirely sure what it would go in (the perennial problem of Not Enough Jars). There are also chestnuts, hazelnuts and walnuts although I am a little disappointed at the lack of a really good chestnut and chocolate cake recipe. I am always on the search for the cake that would be equal to the memory of the one great aunt V used to make at this time of the year.

This week’s loaf, I am pretty pleased with it. It’s a white and spelt sourdough, good bouncy texture inside and a better crust than last week – I blasted this one in a hot oven first. After 3 weeks of experimentation with Paul Hollywood’s method, I think I’ve now worked out what to keep from it and what to change well enough to post a recipe. This should be started at lunchtime on the day before if you want to have it ready for breakfast.

Ingredients: 400g bread flour – this can be all white or a mix of white with other flours (strong wholemeal, rye, spelt, malted). Just ensure that strong white flour dominates as the others have less gluten and don’t rise as well. So, this particular loaf was 250g strong white and 150g spelt flour. 250g sourdough starter, 250ml water and 1tsp salt. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl to form a dough then knead by hand for 10 or so minutes until elastic or 6 minutes in a mixer with a dough hook attachment. Shape into a ball and leave to prove, in an oiled bowl, covered with a cloth for 5 hours. Take out the dough and deflate, on a lightly floured work surface, roll it up tightly, flatten then blanket fold and shape into an oval, coat with flour (preferably rye or spelt) and leave to prove for a second time – on a well floured board or in a proving basket placed inside a plastic bag, for another 12-13 hours. The slow second prove will give the loaf a bit of a skin, which helps the final crust. Place a hot stone or a baking sheet in the oven an preheat to 250C (fan or, equivalent high setting). Slash the loaf then bake for 10 minutes then reduce the oven temperature to 180C fan and bake for a further 30 minutes.

Sourdough new method

 

Not a bad loaf! Second attempt at using Paul Hollywood’s method of making the dough, leaving it for five hours, then shaping and leaving to prove for a further 12-13 hours. This time though, I just used his timings and sourdough starter quantity and stuck to my own flour/ water/ salt ratio after last week’s mishap with adding too much water without thinking. Much better result despite the loaf leaning to one side a bit – I should have kept the proving basket level but never mind. I used 400g flour – mix of strong white, strong wholemeal and rye, 250ml water, teaspoon of salt and approximately 250g sourdough starter, possibly a little more. A good rise on the second prove and this time, the dough had a much better structure so didn’t deflate much when slashed. The slower prove allows for a ‘skin’ to develop too – it cracked a little when I slashed it, guess I should think about getting one of those ‘slashy’ baking implements. I also think the colder weather helps with a slower second prove. Not sure this method would work as well in high summer, the dough would just balloon. Here is the loaf, halved

 

 

Looks good and smells good, haven’t tried it yet. It was baked on a hot stone in a 190C fan oven for 40 minutes as per recipe but I think I prefer blasting it at 250C first for ten minutes, then lowering the temperature to 180C. Will try that next week and also try steaming the oven to see if that improves the crust – I think the crust could be better.

While there are ways I could improve on this method, what I really like about it is that the bread was done at around 8am and not in the middle of the afternoon as with other methods I’ve been using. I’ve still got Justin Gellately’s method from St. John book to try (at least I hope it’s his method in the book!) and Dan Lepard’s from The Handmade Loaf, which I finally got the other week. I’m also thinking about doing a second starter with white flour to see if that can be used for more ‘delicate’ baking although not really sure where to keep it and whether I really want to have two starters to feed and mind.

Walnut sourdough

I’ve been making sourdough bread regularly for over a year now, using the River Cottage method that I’m very comfortable with. At the same time, I have other books with other methods – St. John’s, Paul Hollywood’s and now also Dan Lepard’s, having recently bought The Handmade Loaf. Last weekend I didn’t make any bread so this weekend, I thought it’s about time I tried a different recipe. Paul Hollywood’s one interested me as he makes up the dough with all the ingredients (and not just the sponge), gives it time to rise and then a very long time to prove. This is a two day job – all proper sourdough is, but the benefit of this method is that the final prove is overnight so it can be baked first thing in the morning and be ready for breakfast. The bread was ready early this morning but, to my great shame, I realised too late that I used way too much water in the dough and have ended up with a bit of a flatbread, not a proper loaf:

I was a little stupid – I’d worked out the time I’d need for the bread fine but was very busy with work all morning so I started the dough late and then rushed this through. The reason I haven’t used Paul Hollywood’s method before is that he uses 500g sourdough starter for 2 loaves and that’s more than my ‘mothership’ jar can hold. I usually use around 150-200g for a loaf. So I was quite liberal with feeding sourdough over past couple of days in order to have 250g for the bread and enough left over to keep the starter going. I halved Hollywood’s recipe for Walnut sourdough (in How to Bake) and also replaced some of the white flour with wholemeal. The ingredients went into the mixing bowl, the mixer went to work and I started adding water, completely forgetting to halve the amount… It was looking a bit wet but I thought some methods just use more than 65% water so maybe it’d be fine in the end. Didn’t realise what I’d done until 5 hours later and by then it was too late to start again. As I transferred the bread onto the super-well-floured peel it held its shape fairly well but as I cut the cross pattern, the whole thing totally deflated. On the positive side, once it was out of the oven and cooled a bit, I cut it in half and am pretty pleased with the texture:

Now I can at least imagine what it would have been like if I’d got the flour/water ratio properly. I’m thinking this method may have legs – imagining the possibilities of a long, slow prove and the resulting texture. Will definitely try again next week.

Sourdough pancakes

 

Time has conspired against me today, not enough of it for a sourdough loaf so I made pancakes for breakfast instead. These serve as a good check on the sourness of the starter too and it is good and sour. Lovely. To make, mix anywhere between 100-150g sourdough starter (I usually just pour in from the jar without weighing), 120g flour, 2 eggs, pinch of salt, 25g melted butter and 150-160ml milk (depending on how much starter used) into a smooth pancake batter, then proceed as per normal pancakes. Flip over as air bubbles start to appear on top. This batter quantity will make up to 12. Had some bacon left over so we had a few with bacon and maple syrup, then yoghurt, maple syrup and flaked almonds with the rest and now totally stuffed. Haven’t had these in ages, must get into the habit of making them regularly again as they are so good and they use up the starter that you’d normally throw away.

Seeded sourdough

 

This loaf, although it looks and tastes rather marvellous, is not a proper sourdough, it’s yeast aided. I was going to make a proper sourdough loaf but got sidetracked by reading Divergent trilogy (a bit obsessed with dystopian sci fi/ fantasy books at the moment) and forgot to make the sponge before I went to bed. So I started the loaf when I woke up yesterday morning. Early morning bread making usually means that I forget to add ingredients like salt but I was awake enough to think this loaf through. I used 500g flour in total (300g strong white and 200g strong wholemeal), 200g sourdough starter, 1tsp salt, 1 and a 1/2 tsp quick acting yeast and 300ml cold water. Mixed for 1 minute at slow speed in the mixer with a dough hook attachment, then 6 minutes at high speed. Shaped it into a ball with oiled hands, then left, covered in an oiled bowl for an hour. Deflated, shaped again and left for another hour – repeated deflating and shaping four times in total, then deflated one final time, sprinkled with a handful of pumpkin, sesame and poppy seeds and a handful of rolled oats (you can use linseed, sunflower or any other seeds, I used what I had to hand), rolled up tightly, flattened again, blanket folded and shaped into an oval. Coated in rye flour and sprinkled rolled oats on top and left to prove in a banneton. My final prove was 2 hours, after which the loaf went to bake on a hot stone, oven was preheated to 250C for the first 10 minutes then baked for another 30 minutes at 180C. The loaf kept the shape well (it often deflates when I transfer it to the peel) although I found it difficult to slash with the oats on top.

 

Very happy with the texture and taste. Good crumb too. I had it with just butter, still warm (the best) and slices of fig, which I was about to roast to make ice cream with. Delicious. Will post ice cream recipe later too, it only went into the freezer an hour ago so not quite ready to try yet.