Whenever I get newly into something, I'm a sucker for buying all the gadgets, all the add-on bits. When I was eighteen - eighteen for Christ's sake - I got into cycling and had a racing bike hand made. It cost over £600. This was in 1984, when £600 could buy you a house. The bike had all the latest everything on it, I went completely mad.
I'd like to point out I funded its purchase myself. Entirely. From the proceeds of selling ice-cream outside my parents' shop all summer, every summer, from 1979. Aside from the loan I extorted off my aunt in Italy. But I paid it back. But the bike wasn't enough. I had to have special cycle shorts (because of course I couldn't ride it without them). And a special cycle jersey. And hand-made in Cumbria (I didn't even know where Cumbria was at that point) cycle shoes. And I had a computer thingy on the handlebars that told me how far I'd cycled (not very far at all) and for how long.
Thankfully, I lost my virginity a few years later and stopped being quite so mad.
My friends from school, of whom I still have four (they are my top, top friends, the inner circle): Alex, Claudia, Emma and Sandra, still occasionally hint at my prior madness. They know that it's rare I get into something and don't decide it's really essential that I have that extra bit of kit.
So when I started making bread, I was determined, really determined, that I wouldn't clutter up the kitchen with any more extra 'stuff'. I proved my first loaf in a bowl, lined with a tea towel. It worked fine. Well, I say that but the teatowel stuck a bit (was it pure linen? who knew) and well, it was a bit of a faff, turning the loaf out.
I'd read about bannetons (aka pa(n)netons in some books), proving baskets, which are made of wood fibre, or cane or wicker. Because sourdough dough is fragile, it needs support when proving, otherwise it'd just spread out like a thick puddle. I decided I liked the wicker ones best, they seemed to make the most sense to me.
I was adamant I didn't need them. I could manage fine with a teatowel and a bowl or sieve, which is what loads of people did I was sure.
But then I bought one. And I can reliably report that they really are a purchase worth making. You put the dough in the panneton for the final proof. Then, I cover it with a teatowel (see, I still am using that teatowel!) and put it in the fridge for an overnight or longer, prove.
When I'm ready to bake, I simply tip the bread out onto the polenta lined baking tray. No fiddling about trying to transfer the dough out of the teatowel and bowl and onto the tray.
Mine were the wicker ones from Bakery Bits, my absolute favourite website for buying all things bread-baking related. Everything on there is easy to understand (lots of bread websites are commercial and not reader friendly at all), and the service is great.
I started off with a 400g round wicker one and now have two 600g batons and 1k round. I really recommend you get them lined, as the cost isn't that much more and I really don't see the point of them unlined. Although NOTE: I washed mine after several uses (you don't wash them after every use, see the BB blog for more advice on looking after them) and they split. So when you do wash yours, take extra care. I put mine on a short rinse in the machine (which is a Miele of course, so double-good), a process I really think linen liners should be able to withstand. But one split so badly it's unusable, the other did along one seam. Only one survived completely intact. I wrote to BB about this and they are replacing them and were very courteous. Which goes to show you can't always control it when something goes wrong, but you can control how you handle it.
However, in chatting to Patrick at Bakery Bits, I learned some interesting things. Since I bought my bannetons the site now also sells Matfer wicker lined bannetons (advertised as "heavy-duty" on the site). These are about double the price of the Bakery Bits bannetons. So for example a 1k round regular one would be £10.99 (all BB prices excl of VAT), but a Matfer one would be £19.99.
However, the Rolls Royce of wicker bannetons are Vannerie ones, people on bread blogs talk about these with real reverence. To continue the comparison, a 1k lined Vannerie basket is £34.99. I believe they are things of of beauty, and I'm sure are very robust, but that's just too much for me! But it'd be nice as a present (HINT HINT to all those people who say I'm hard to buy for).
If you're serious about bread-making - and I guess you wouldn't know that until you'd made lots - then I think the Matfer ones would be good to get, a good half-way house. I can see how the wicker is more substantial and I'd hope the lining didn't rip. I think the Vannerie ones are for people with the money. But I have a soft spot for the most basic ones, they do the job not just well, but great and considering that you can make sourdough just fine with a tea-towel and bowl, anything above that is surely a step up.
Friday, 30 July 2010
Thursday, 15 July 2010
72 hour prove
Because making your own bread seems to make other people feel guilty, one of the questions I get asked a lot, rather accusingly, is "how do you find the time to make your own bread?"
The ironic thing is that since I've been making my own sourdough I have:
Lost weight
Saved money
Spent less time shopping
This is because sourdough is low GI, it's so delicious it's almost (I said ALMOST) like eating cake but without the sugar lurch. So I snack in more satisfying fashion. Because a loaf of bread and some scraps make a meal, I spend less time shopping, ergo I save money. (Because although I do go shopping with a list, I always go off-list, too, so I go in for a tin of tomatoes and come out having spent £23.)
But also, sourdough, as my friend Lucy told me, is forgiving and easy to fit into a busy schedule. Aside from the beginning bit, the rest you squeeze in in amongst the laundry folding etc. The only thing it doesn't work with is when I am actually away from the house, because sourdough requires lots of little bits of time spread out throughout the day. It suits me perfectly.
What I've also discovered is that you can make a double batch, prove it in the fridge, bake one lot and then keep the rest in the fridge. So far I've done this for 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours...you get the picture. This means that you can have fresh bread without having to have actually made it the day before.
This was a genius discovery for the likes of me.
A pure white sourdough doesn't seem to like proving over about 24 hours (although more experimentation is needed). Any longer than this and it overproves. It's still delicious, but you'll get big air bubbles at the top of the bread and the crust starts to come away. But with darker flours it works better. I made a three flour loaf (white, rye, wholemeal) the other day, proved one over 12 hours at 4 degrees then cooked it. But kept the second loaf for 72 hours at 4 degrees.
The 72 hour loaf looked like it would be my first failure. As I slashed it, it collapsed alarmingly. I checked it after 15 mins at 250 degreees and it still looked collapsed and I prepared myself for failure. But after it's second 15 mins at 220 degrees it looked completely normal. It had risen, it looked great.
But.
It tasted absolutely delicious. The longer the prove the longer the taste has to develop, see.
The ironic thing is that since I've been making my own sourdough I have:
Lost weight
Saved money
Spent less time shopping
This is because sourdough is low GI, it's so delicious it's almost (I said ALMOST) like eating cake but without the sugar lurch. So I snack in more satisfying fashion. Because a loaf of bread and some scraps make a meal, I spend less time shopping, ergo I save money. (Because although I do go shopping with a list, I always go off-list, too, so I go in for a tin of tomatoes and come out having spent £23.)
But also, sourdough, as my friend Lucy told me, is forgiving and easy to fit into a busy schedule. Aside from the beginning bit, the rest you squeeze in in amongst the laundry folding etc. The only thing it doesn't work with is when I am actually away from the house, because sourdough requires lots of little bits of time spread out throughout the day. It suits me perfectly.
What I've also discovered is that you can make a double batch, prove it in the fridge, bake one lot and then keep the rest in the fridge. So far I've done this for 12 hours, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours...you get the picture. This means that you can have fresh bread without having to have actually made it the day before.
This was a genius discovery for the likes of me.
A pure white sourdough doesn't seem to like proving over about 24 hours (although more experimentation is needed). Any longer than this and it overproves. It's still delicious, but you'll get big air bubbles at the top of the bread and the crust starts to come away. But with darker flours it works better. I made a three flour loaf (white, rye, wholemeal) the other day, proved one over 12 hours at 4 degrees then cooked it. But kept the second loaf for 72 hours at 4 degrees.
The 72 hour loaf looked like it would be my first failure. As I slashed it, it collapsed alarmingly. I checked it after 15 mins at 250 degreees and it still looked collapsed and I prepared myself for failure. But after it's second 15 mins at 220 degrees it looked completely normal. It had risen, it looked great.
But.
It tasted absolutely delicious. The longer the prove the longer the taste has to develop, see.
My three flour loaf, baked 72 hours after it was made. It was delicious.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
The best crumb yet
So. I'm starting to crack the making of sourdough in this extreme heat. The optimum heat for making and proving seems to be in the 18-21 degrees range (for me, at least) but even though my kitchen is pretty cool, me living in the country 'n' all, it has reached temps of 25.
This has made proving tricky, so I've cut down proving times in a most scientific way. Er, by roughly 20%. And then not always cos if I'm feeding the baby/trying to get her to sleep/doing almost anything, I forget, get distracted and then my giant timer tells me that I've run over by 38 minutes or something.
It's not been so bad when the sourdough has included low-gluten flours like barley or rye, but when it's pure white, it's sometimes been a struggle to keep the dough on the table top as it spreads out. I've heard tales of ciabatta dough being so frisky, bakers have had to chase it round the kitchen.
The heat has also made me sometimes panic whilst handling the dough. And one knows one must never show fear in baking.
Absolutely essential has been oiling the surface you're working on. I use a large Top Gourmet chopping board. This means that, in my busy kitchen, I can move the bread around easily if surfaces are needed for something else (because let's face it, making sourdough takes all day so you do need to do other stuff). I can sometimes get away with not oiling the surface, especially when making breads containing what I call 'healthy flours' (i.e. anything but white). But it really can make the difference when working with white flour, in the heat.
The other day I made a giant potato bread loaf which I hardly handled at all (it was really hot and the dough turned to glue the moment I touched it), I used just a dough scraper. The bread was fantastic, but I do think it suffered from the lack of loving.
Anyway, yesterday I could tell straight off the dough was going to be good. I put it to prove at 4 degrees (i.e. in the bottom shelf of the fridge) for six hours, then took it out and put it at 20 degrees for three hours.
Then I did something which has no rhyme or reason but seems to make a huge difference. I pre-heated the trays, as per. I used ice cubes as per, but I heated the oven up to 220 and then when the bread went in, I put it up to 250. I did this the very first time I made sourdough and sort of forgot about it, because usually what I do is always crank it up straight away to 250 (because you'd think the hotter the oven is to start, the better, no?). But something about turning the temperature up as the bread goes in makes for a much better crust. I cooked it for 15 minutes at 250 then down to 220 for another 20 or so.
It is a fucking marvellous loaf. Here it is. Tell me I'm not a total genius.
This has made proving tricky, so I've cut down proving times in a most scientific way. Er, by roughly 20%. And then not always cos if I'm feeding the baby/trying to get her to sleep/doing almost anything, I forget, get distracted and then my giant timer tells me that I've run over by 38 minutes or something.
It's not been so bad when the sourdough has included low-gluten flours like barley or rye, but when it's pure white, it's sometimes been a struggle to keep the dough on the table top as it spreads out. I've heard tales of ciabatta dough being so frisky, bakers have had to chase it round the kitchen.
The heat has also made me sometimes panic whilst handling the dough. And one knows one must never show fear in baking.
Absolutely essential has been oiling the surface you're working on. I use a large Top Gourmet chopping board. This means that, in my busy kitchen, I can move the bread around easily if surfaces are needed for something else (because let's face it, making sourdough takes all day so you do need to do other stuff). I can sometimes get away with not oiling the surface, especially when making breads containing what I call 'healthy flours' (i.e. anything but white). But it really can make the difference when working with white flour, in the heat.
The other day I made a giant potato bread loaf which I hardly handled at all (it was really hot and the dough turned to glue the moment I touched it), I used just a dough scraper. The bread was fantastic, but I do think it suffered from the lack of loving.
Anyway, yesterday I could tell straight off the dough was going to be good. I put it to prove at 4 degrees (i.e. in the bottom shelf of the fridge) for six hours, then took it out and put it at 20 degrees for three hours.
Then I did something which has no rhyme or reason but seems to make a huge difference. I pre-heated the trays, as per. I used ice cubes as per, but I heated the oven up to 220 and then when the bread went in, I put it up to 250. I did this the very first time I made sourdough and sort of forgot about it, because usually what I do is always crank it up straight away to 250 (because you'd think the hotter the oven is to start, the better, no?). But something about turning the temperature up as the bread goes in makes for a much better crust. I cooked it for 15 minutes at 250 then down to 220 for another 20 or so.
It is a fucking marvellous loaf. Here it is. Tell me I'm not a total genius.
It tastes wonderful, really sour, tasty crust.I love it so much I've thrust it under the nose of almost everyone whose come through the door this morning. My dad has had to say "fantastico" at least seven times.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Slashing - do you need special tools?
The subject of slashing is big in the bread world. Before I started baking bread, I had no idea that those slashes were there for anything other than decoration.
Oh how simple my world must have been.
If I've understood it correctly, and it's entirely probable I haven't, you slash your bread so that it can rise to maximum height without exploding. This is because the heat of the oven causes something caused "oven spring"- that final push upwards. Because the bread has a certain surface tension, you want the bread to rise as much as possible before the crust bakes hard and doesn't allow any further growth. So in this respect slashing helps, (but so does causing a moist environment in the oven - steam. More on this another time).
If you slash, you control where the bread expands. If you didn't and it needed to expand, it might burst in an uncontrollable fashion. So slashing can be decorative and serves a purpose. Btw, you only really need to slash with certain types of bread. Some bread that don't rise much, such as a pure rye, don't need slashes.
But how to slash?
People are nervous of slashing the dough, with good reason. You've spent the best part of a day making your sourdough baby and when you tip it out on a (preferably pre-heated) tray or stone you don't want to muck about with it anymore than you have to. Slashing takes a bit of confidence and good slashing also depends on the proving. If you've overproved, slashing is more likely to make your bread deflate, for instance.
When I first started slashing I used a really sharp knife. I found this dragged and it made me panic, because the bread seemed to deflate (although it seemed to recover fine in the oven).
I never need a reason to buy a new gadget or a specialist tool so I looked up what you could use.
Naturally, I decided, I needed one of the latter.
You can get ones with rotating blades (so you can use both sides, although there's nothing to stop you swopping hands and doing it but I guess that requires some dexterity), ceramic blades, steel blades, replaceable blades. They are used "by the professionals".
I got this one:
Conclusion: it may not be a wallet-busting exercise, buying a professional grignette, but I think a bread-knife does the job better. With the money you save you'd be better off buying a banneton, which is worth the money. But, more on this another time.
Oh how simple my world must have been.
If I've understood it correctly, and it's entirely probable I haven't, you slash your bread so that it can rise to maximum height without exploding. This is because the heat of the oven causes something caused "oven spring"- that final push upwards. Because the bread has a certain surface tension, you want the bread to rise as much as possible before the crust bakes hard and doesn't allow any further growth. So in this respect slashing helps, (but so does causing a moist environment in the oven - steam. More on this another time).
If you slash, you control where the bread expands. If you didn't and it needed to expand, it might burst in an uncontrollable fashion. So slashing can be decorative and serves a purpose. Btw, you only really need to slash with certain types of bread. Some bread that don't rise much, such as a pure rye, don't need slashes.
But how to slash?
People are nervous of slashing the dough, with good reason. You've spent the best part of a day making your sourdough baby and when you tip it out on a (preferably pre-heated) tray or stone you don't want to muck about with it anymore than you have to. Slashing takes a bit of confidence and good slashing also depends on the proving. If you've overproved, slashing is more likely to make your bread deflate, for instance.
When I first started slashing I used a really sharp knife. I found this dragged and it made me panic, because the bread seemed to deflate (although it seemed to recover fine in the oven).
I never need a reason to buy a new gadget or a specialist tool so I looked up what you could use.
- A razor blade - no good for me as I have young children and I wasn't going to risk a naked blade escaping from the drawer.
- A grignette or lame - a posh Stanley knife.
Naturally, I decided, I needed one of the latter.
You can get ones with rotating blades (so you can use both sides, although there's nothing to stop you swopping hands and doing it but I guess that requires some dexterity), ceramic blades, steel blades, replaceable blades. They are used "by the professionals".
I got this one:
Mure and Peynot Panette Professional Grignette, £9.99, close up of curved blade
Same, seen side on and full length and with safety cover.
It has a replaceable blade and a safety cover as seen above.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, in his lovely little book on bread suggests you can use a bread knife. If you've ever tried to slice a tomato with a regular (even really sharp) knife and a serrated bread knife, you'll know the latter makes the job so much easier.
Surely a bread knife couldn't be as good as, or better, than a special tool?
Well actually yes it can. I'm sure if you're a proper artisan baker who makes all sorts of fancy patterns on their bread, then I'm sure that a grignette, in your hands does amazing things. But I can't get the slashes to go deep enough.
The bread knife does a far better job.
Slash made with grignette on potato bread. Nice, but see how shallow it is? Although you'll see the bread knife is already starting to muscle in.
This morning's bread, white sourdough, slashed with a simple bread knife. Better, no?
Yesterday's bread: three flour mill loaf, with bread knife slashes.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Pane e amore
I'm really pleased with the loaves I've made so far. Whilst they may not all look as presentable as those I've bought in (proper, artisan, baker) shops, they're really delicious. So delicious I have difficulty believing I've made them myself.
But the more I learn about sourdough, the more I realise it's a bit like hi-fi's (or whatever they're called theseadays). You can get to the point where you finesse, finesse, finesse so much that you're still going long past the point anyone else stopped caring.
I remember standing in a hi-fi shop with a hi-fi geek friend of mine, who was trying to show me the difference between one system (and we're not talking those vertically racked systems, please, we're talking individually bought and unmatching components) that cost £5K and one that cost £7K. "Can you hear the difference?" she asked.
No, I couldn't. This is where I feigned an epileptic fit and asked to leave the shop.
There are a couple of questions I have at the moment about sourdough. I'll have so many more, but at the moment a few are really bugging me. What I want is a really technical, but hand-holdy book (and if you know of one, please let me know) that will explain the science in a bit more detail than The Handmade Loaf.
And as I try to find these out on the web, I get more drawn into super-geek bread sites (trust me they make this look like Grazia) that make me feel like a miserable failure.
Even though, I have to remind myself, I think my bread is great and it does everything a good loaf should. It rises, it looks lovely and it tastes wonderful. What more could I want? At which point does it get good enough and people stop wondering if the addition of one extra ice cube will make for that super-perfect crust, or if they'd just turned the dough another 180 degrees during their crumb improvement proof, it would have had elongated holes to rival a natural sea-sponge.
Does it matter? I'm beginning to suspect it does. But I also want to scream at some of these sites and say:
"Are you shagging enough?" because surely you can't be. I can't believe anyone who is having enough sex can get that into bread.
And I include myself in this. But look. I have an excuse.
Must go now, have a loaf in the oven.
But the more I learn about sourdough, the more I realise it's a bit like hi-fi's (or whatever they're called theseadays). You can get to the point where you finesse, finesse, finesse so much that you're still going long past the point anyone else stopped caring.
I remember standing in a hi-fi shop with a hi-fi geek friend of mine, who was trying to show me the difference between one system (and we're not talking those vertically racked systems, please, we're talking individually bought and unmatching components) that cost £5K and one that cost £7K. "Can you hear the difference?" she asked.
No, I couldn't. This is where I feigned an epileptic fit and asked to leave the shop.
There are a couple of questions I have at the moment about sourdough. I'll have so many more, but at the moment a few are really bugging me. What I want is a really technical, but hand-holdy book (and if you know of one, please let me know) that will explain the science in a bit more detail than The Handmade Loaf.
And as I try to find these out on the web, I get more drawn into super-geek bread sites (trust me they make this look like Grazia) that make me feel like a miserable failure.
Even though, I have to remind myself, I think my bread is great and it does everything a good loaf should. It rises, it looks lovely and it tastes wonderful. What more could I want? At which point does it get good enough and people stop wondering if the addition of one extra ice cube will make for that super-perfect crust, or if they'd just turned the dough another 180 degrees during their crumb improvement proof, it would have had elongated holes to rival a natural sea-sponge.
Does it matter? I'm beginning to suspect it does. But I also want to scream at some of these sites and say:
"Are you shagging enough?" because surely you can't be. I can't believe anyone who is having enough sex can get that into bread.
And I include myself in this. But look. I have an excuse.
Must go now, have a loaf in the oven.
A completely gratuitous picture of Sofia Loren NOT baking bread.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
Rye and Wholemeal bread
Rye and wholemeal, supposed to be Barley and Rye bread, cept I got distracted.
Proved in two whicker 600g baton bannetons for ten hours at 4 degrees. Cooked on preheated tray at 250 for ten minutes then 220 for ten minutes. Slashed with a professional Mure and Peynot grignette with a curved blade. One worked more successfully than the other. Not sure why.
Today's bread was supposed to be Barley and Rye bread from Dan Lepard's The Handmade Loaf. I've rather overdosed on white flour bread and even though sourdough is low GI, and I use stoneground, organic white flour, I really started to feel I needed to make a loaf that wasn't just white flour.
The majority of sourdough bread has a tendency towards white flour use. White flour does the work in keeping the bubbles of sourdough up in a way that other flours can't. This recipe called for a rye leaven, 300g white flour and then 100g each of rye and barley. I'd just had a chat with another budding baker friend about wanting to use more wholemeal so that's what was in my head and that's what I reached for instead of the barley flour. Anyway, it's no bad thing. As you'll see it still uses mostly white flour. *sucks teeth*
I'd made this loaf (using the correct ingredients) before and it's delicious. A really subtly delicious loaf and great for sandwiches (what I also love about sourdough, because have I mentioned that I love it, is its keeping qualities).
Rye and wholemeal crumb, second slice, it will only get better as I get further into the loaf.
Barley and rye bread made with proper ingredients and an 11hr rise at about 12 degrees. Dan Lepard described this loaf as having a "bold beauty".
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Mr Potato Bread
Potato bread.
Proved in a 400g round whicker banneton with linen lining for 13hrs at 4 degrees.
Cooked on a preheated baking tray at 250C for ten minutes then at 220 for a further ten minutes.
A couple of years ago, at the excellent Whitecross Street market, I bought a Tortano bread from The Power Station. This was a large ring shape and it had potato in it. The potato wasn't obvious, but the flavour of the bread was exceptional.
I've dreamed of it ever since, buying it when I can, but that hasn't been often. When I saw Dan Lepard had a recipe for potato bread in his book The Handmade Loaf, I decided to try it.
The recipe calls for honey and grated potato. This was my first long rise (prove) at such a low temperature (I usually prove my bread for about eight hours at about 15 degrees), and I was dubious it would work. My suspicions were deepened when I got the dough and it didn't seem to have risen as much as my bread usually does. It had spring to it, and I tipped it out onto a preheated, polenta dusted tray (I always use Mermaid trays) and it still deflated slightly. I had two shapes on the go, one in a 400g round (which you can see above) and one in a 600g baton (which you can see in a minute). The slashes on the round one didn't really have much effect and the loaf sort of burst out of one end. The recipe had called for a central fold, rather than slashes, but I hadn't done this (tut, see what happens when you go off piste).
The baton shape I'd slashed on the top but also along one length.
Both breads rose beautifully, with a fabulous (I think anyway) crumb. The baton ended up being more successful in terms of loaf-look because of the beautiful fanning open of the long cut I'd made. I must warn you that this bread is just superb tasting. I had some for lunch with griddled peppers and a tomato salad. You can taste the sweetness of the honey, but not in an off putting way at all - even if you didn't like honey I reckon you'd still love this. My boyfyhusband is currently eating his way through the second loaf whilst I remind him that it's fodder for our daughter's lunch box. I can't even begin to think how delicious this bread would be if used for a bacon sandwich, with some chilli jam. Be warned.
The potato bread baton slash. Bootiful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
