Yearly Archives: 2010

Wishful Baking Syndrome

I suffer from WBS. Am I alone?

I rashly promise that I will bake all manner of things. I state my intentions on the great forums I participate in. Then life comes along and something happens and I forget that promise, it slips gently from a definite to a ‘later today’ to a ‘maybe tonight’ to an ‘OK, tomorrow then’. From there it proceeds in a straight line to ‘the middle of the week’. Sometimes it skips all those and is lodged next to someone’s birthday, or a visit somewhere.

In the meantime the cook books pile up in the kitchen, the print-outs from my friends’ blogs, the writers I love and read in the daily papers whose recipes I carefully save. My wishful intentions stacked like planes waiting to get into Heathrow.

Sometimes it’s a miracle that anything gets baked at all. And seems like a dream. Did I really make panettone last year? Roll out baguettes and lift their fragile little bodies from couche to peel? Surely that wasn’t me who made an apricot kugelhopf? The great advantage of being a professional baker must be that you really get to practise and hone your craft; your hands eventually being able to read the dough and understand by feel and aroma just what is going on; whether to leave the dough a little longer to rest, to move it somewhere warmer or cooler, how to flick flour in the lightest of feathery sprays over the work surface…

There are no short cuts, reading and looking and observing will get you so far, but practice is all. It took me 22 hours of bashing away at a keyboard in an echoey room many years ago to be able to type without looking at the keyboard. I wonder how many hours it takes to make a baker?

Semolina Barbecue buns – hospital food!

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I’ve been asked if I ever make the same bread twice. I’ve made this one at least half a dozen times so far…

These were made quickly this morning for my neighbour, stuck in hospital – they’re her favourite of all the breads I’ve taken round in the last two years. Her daughter will make her sandwiches with them this afternoon. Who wants to eat hospital food after all?

So in case you missed my original post, here’s the link to the recipe, one of Dan Lepard’s best Guardian bread recipes from this year. Winter, summer – who cares, eat what makes you happy if you can!

Experimental Oatmilk Bread

Oats away!

Sometimes it is just nice to make some bread and not think too hard about it. In the same way that one opens a cupboard, comes across a can of beans or a jar of pesto, I opened the fridge today and thought, ‘What is that?’

That turned out to be a carton of oatmilk. What was it doing in the fridge?

I reckoned it dates back to a cholesterol lowering bread challenge on Dan Lepard’s forum. Gill made a pea and wasabi loaf which I got to try, spicy pea bread, quite unique! But I passed on the challenge back then, too busy nattering. Today though I saw the carton of organic oat juice languishing in the fridge and thought I must use that up or at least open it and see what it’s like…

It's never quite the same colour in the glass as on the packet, is it?

I shook up the carton, opened it, had a suspicous sniff, poured a little out – yurg – realised I hadn’t shaken it up enough, so remembering to put the top back on for once, I gave it another chance.

I shook it up really vigorously and out came something that looked a lot like soya milk. I had a little taste, sweet and oaty and to my mind a lot pleasanter than soya milk. I had nothing else planned and seeing as how that American starter was jumping up and down in his pot, saying, “Me, me – feed me, use me, even if I am just an extra bit of flavouring, take pity on me!” You can see where I am going with this, can’t you? Do you have any idea how mad you are getting when you hear the starter talking to you?

So to cut a long shaggy bread story short, here is my first crack at:

…Oatley Oatmilk bread with Whole Oat Flakes

I used:

200 g finest Oregon starter (100% hydration)
320 g oat milk
350 g organic strong white flour
100 g very strong white flour
50 g organic porridge oats
100 g swiss dark flour (wholemeal type)
13 g salt
10 grams fresh yeast ( you can leave this out and you will get a more open and possibly chewier crumb)
25 g unsalted butter (can’t have my bread too healthy but I am sure it would be fine without the butter)
Mixed, left for half an hour followed by 2 short kneads during the first prove, once the dough had doubled (after about 90 minutes)
Shaped into two ovals, put into bannetons and left till doubled again, another 90 minutes or so.
Into a pre-heated 220 º C oven, baked on a stone with a little steam for 40 minutes, turning the oven down for the last 10 minutes and cooled on a rack.

I love the smell of oats in bread

I was rewarded with this golden, well sprung loaf with a soft delicately oaty crumb and a crunchy crust. I’m looking forward to toasting this one for breakfast!

Does anything talk to you in your kitchen? Shh, I won’t tell….