Soured DOH!

Over the weekend I made another attempt at a sourdough. The requisite stages all went well: the ferment nice and sour, the mix and kneading smooth, and the transfer from banetton to baking sheet by the book slick. I was thrusting the dough into the steamy oven, slamming the door shut when I realised: I hadn't slashed the loaf. The horror!

I didn't shout but I think I did say the f word approximately 20 times.

It might seem an overreaction but a sourdough loaf without slashes is just plain wrong. It's like Walk on the Wild Side without the sax solo, The Third Man without the Zither score, or E S Blofeld without his white cat. Just a simple, deceptively minor addition that adds so much.

Nevertheless, the final loaf did taste really, very good - even without slashes.

Ale Poolish Loaf

A loaf baked with ale? It sounds like madness, but it seems that if a potential ingredient is at least technically edible then you can put it in a loaf.

Read top bread boffin Dan Lepard's bread book and you'll see recipes that include ale, cider, wine, whey (or the water that mozzarella is packed in), cucumber pickle juice, lard, pork crackling to name a few (not all the same loaf). Yum, yum.

In this instance, ale is mixed with an equal weight of flour and a little yeast to create a poolish ferment. Left to bubble overnight it's added into the dough mix the next morning. The resulting dough has a wonderful, strong sweet aroma which stays with it throughout the whole process, right through to the final baked loaf.

The loaf had a distinct malty taste, with a nice golden crust and soft, sweet white crumb. Another tasty recipe from Crust.

East Anglian Secret Sourdough Society

The first recipe to be tackled from Crust had to be the sourdough loaf. Having made Dan Lepard's leaven loaves a few times I felt I was ready to take on Mr Bertinet's authentic sourdough method.

Using Bertinet's flour / water ratio for his sourdough ferment, I refreshed good old Cuthbert the Leaven. After a few days of cultivating I had nice sweet smelling ferment just like it said in the book.

Anyway I can hear your eyes glazing over: "Oh geez more boring baking tosh!" you rightly wimper. So I'll condense the tale into a few simple, yet thrilling facts.

Eight thrilling sourdough recipe facts: 
• Ingredients included spelt flour. Yes: SPELT!
• 18 hours to prove! (I used a banetton.)
• 35 minutes to bake.
• When baked it had a sweet and sour aroma.
• Thick crunchy, chewy crust.
• Soft, tasty sour crumb.
• Everyone who had a bit said it was nice.
• Makes the best toast ever.

It was a success. Hooray! I'll be making this again soon.

Kingdom of crust

This year's yuletide discharge from Santa's bulging sacks revealed a copy of Crust by Richard Bertinet from my lovely wife MsG. Hooray!

Boasting an impressive length of recipe numbers and an enviable girth of bread analysis, Criust is an extension of his first book Dough, Bertinet taking the reader deeper into the world of fermented vittles. The book includes detailed method for creating a sourdough ferment, along with a recipe for a stunning looking sourdough loaf.

Bracketing the book's impressive looking recipes are detailed, enthusiastic descriptions of the bread baking processes, ingredients, tools and techniques, and a choice list of suppliers.

The author's real gift is the ability to teach fairly complicated baking procedures in simple, logical ways. Baking sourdough for instance, is not an easy task at all, but Bertinet Padawan's can turn out impressive looking loaves, the kind of which overpaid Knightsbridge punters would happily fork out good gelt at their local deli. This is the perfect book for anyone wanting to learn how to bake cool looking bread.

What a tart!

MsG's birthday is woefully close to Jesus's, which means: a double December sized dent on the credit card for presents.

However, nothing furnishes swollen outgoings with welcome relief like a home-made gift. Spousal kudos is raised immeasurably by delivering a small item that (often literally) reeks of toil and sweat. So to counterbalance the presents I've got for MsG I've baked her a smashing cake.

After a rifle through several magazines and books MsG settled on a pine nut and honey tart. It was quite easy to make, the pastry being the trickiest element. It all came together well in the end though, with the final verdict from Judge G: a big thumbs up!

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Also baked this weekend: crumpets (not a great success), and another bash at the all round favourite lemon barley cob.

I've seen this happen in other people's loaves and now it's happening in mine

Hurrah! At last: I've made a loaf that looks like it wasn't baked by a chimp. In fact, Sunday's loaf could easily have sneaked into a quality baker's display and probably have stayed there all day without being rumbled.

The emergence of this fine loaf leaves behind several months of lumpy, burned and disfigured feakish breads.

Generally the success is mostly down to finally getting right all the different aspects of baking the loaf. Mixing, kneading, resting, shaping, proofing, and critically: transferring into the oven. Everything just went right.

One big difference: when I turned the oven on, I placed an empty loaf tin at the bottom of the oven. When the loaf went in, about 60 minutes later, I very carefully poured a small cupful of water into the loaf tin. This time, the loaf had a nice steamy oven to bake in.

After much deliberation, I finally decided to try a more steamy approach to baking (see earlier posts). And it appears to have worked really well. Note the fine, dramatic tears and ridges in the loaf. The crust had a nice crunch, but not so hard as to bust your crowns.

Cue smug arm folding and a dignified nod to indicate: very satisfactory.

Challah Murphy!

Ms G has put in a request for a challah this Christmas, so on Friday I did a dummy run.

As luck would have it, challah is a great bread to turn out, as it looks impressive but is relatively easy to make. Patience seemed to be the key.

It's pretty quick and easy to mix all the ingredients, and the dough rises without any trouble.

The tricky bit was rolling out the long strands of dough. Platted together to make the distinctive challah shape, they need to be of equal length and of a consistent, even girth (a proper baking term). This means you need to divide your dough evenly by weight, and gently, patiently tease the dough into long, smooth strands.

After that, the finished loaf can be slipped into the oven on the tray it's proofed on which makes life very easy.

The final challah looked and tasted pretty good. Hurrah said Ms G.

May the dough rise with you

Last weekend we went to jolly old London village. We did the essential shoe busting route march across town, looked at stuff. More walking. Looked at some other stuff. More walking. Great fun.

Anyway, London seems to be the only place in the UK where you can buy bannetons. Lovely, linen-lined baskety things. I glommed three of the buggers: big, medium, small. Now who looks like an authentic baker?

Back at the bat-cave: time to give one the new purchases a road-test. After a 60 minute repose in the new snug, cosy banneton, the dough had risen into a perfectly formed round loaf. Brilliant!

Unfortunately, when it was time to hop into the oven, the obdurate, doughy bastard wouldn't budge from the peel. After some typically clumsy tussling, a now lumpy loaf was finally shoved into the waiting cooker.

The important thing, of course is to learn from one's mistakes. Next time: gently tip the proven dough onto an appropriately flour and semolina dusted peel.