Category Archives: Bread

Hot from the press of the inverse cook….

The Grunkorn Karotten Brot I made at the Dales Dough Do from Nils's recipe

Nils has produced a wonderful thing, an ‘e-book’ stuffed full of his finest recipes and photos and baking tips. So if your ryes are not all you think they should be and you want some fantastic recipes or inspiration as to what to bake next, I recommend that you nip over to his blog and download his ‘ebook’. There’s all sorts of goodies in there!
Hand on my heart, he is one of the best bakers around!

I owe my all time favourite  rye bread to him after all.

I have never re-blogged a post before but here goes….

The mentioned e-book, a collection of recipes from the blog, is ready to be viewed. I never thought it would reach this state and I am glad I can finally share it with everyone. It contains recipes and a chapter with baking tips. Every recipe has at least one picture of the finished loaf. Instead of keeping an errata page, I will correct errors and upload the new version on this page. You can download it for free from the following link: Nils’s B … Read More

via ye olde bread blogge

Hamelman’s Five Grain Bread with Old Pizza Dough

Happiness is a well risen loaf of bread!

This was meant to be a catch up post from the August breads for Mellow Bakers but is in fact a bread that’s not on the list. Whoops!

Somewhere I have got a little muddled up so I made this bread which is not the straight five grain bread (one of August’s breads)  but the five grain bread with paté fermentée on page 129 of Bread – A Bakers Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman. Does it matter?  All I know is that this was a drop dead gorgeous loaf which made me happy and stayed fresh and moist for three days, we have half of one left and I will definitely make this one again. It’s a keeper. It reminds me of the light rye with its light crumb and full flavoured crust, just enough seedy interest and with the extra boost to the flavour from the old dough. Wonderful stuff!

The grains are exactly as written in the recipe, a mixture of golden linseed, chopped rye, oats, sunflower seeds and wheatflour – a cold soaker, nothing complicated; all mixed into the yeasted dough and then finally the paté fermentée, which is just a fancy way of saying some old dough.  At this point I confess freely that I deviated from the recipe and excavated a solo ball of Abby’s pizza dough out of the freezer, defrosted it over night and used that. Old dough is old dough and I figured the hydration would be ok, the pizza dough is about 70% (factor in evaporation, time in freezer – I’m kidding, right?) and the formula calls for a paté fermentée of 65% hydration.

Hopefully they’ll both fit on here…

It made an easy to handle dough that shaped into neat tight boules which I popped into two bannetons. All was going well,  in fact better than well, the oven was on, the peel was dusted, I had found my lame, tipped them out onto the peel, admired the fact that they didn’t collapse, always a good sign, calmly slashed them…

Slashing with a nice red knife

… I turned to the oven and it was only on 170 ºC.  What !!!!! It had been turned on, and the oven’s default temperature is 170ºC and I HAD FORGOTTEN to turn it up. So, in not so quiet desperation, I flipped it up to 250 ºC, cuddled the dough a little, whispered sadly and helplessly ‘Be patient, just wait, just hang on in there, please stay calm, please !!!’

I got a little water and painted it into the slashes to distract them while they waited, and the boules were very good and just sat there and didn’t move for ten minutes while the oven guiltily heated up and then in they went.

I got my reward then, I just sat there in front of the glass door and watched them spring and sighed with happiness.  Once they were done I took them outside to meet the pears which we were hastily taking off the tree in anticipation of stormy weather. It’s all go here!

Bread and Pears

What? You want a crumb shot too? OK.

Make this bread – it’s delicious!

the loaf in Crich

The residents of Crich (pronounced cry-ch) in Derbyshire are very lucky – They have the loaf – a wonderful artisan bakery – deli – cafe  run by Andrew Auld and his partner Roger.  We made a slight detour on our recent trip to the Dales in order to go and visit him. We have exchanged recipes and posts on Dan Lepard’s forum and I had a great time being shown round the bakery and getting a serious lesson in making 100 per cent spelt breads and pasteis de natas. I think I’m getting the hang of the bread finally and I have no excuse now not to make those custard tarts as I have been given all the info to make them work!

Andy makes a full range of breads from 100% rye sourdough to traditional wholemeal loaves, there’s a cafe serving great food, and a deli section as well.  His list of breads is flexible and there is always something new coming up. He has customers who come from miles away to stock up on his wonderful breads.  This business is an inspiration showing that you can go into baking from a non-conventional background providing you have the enthusiasm and the passion to do it and are prepared to work seven days a week to make a go of it with 3 am starts!

While we were sitting nattering away over a delicious lunch of pinenut and goats cheese quiche with tabouleh salad,  I noticed that the shelves which had been maybe three quarters full when we arrived, were emptying rapidly…

save some for me!

and I suddenly got anxious that there would be no bread left by the time we went, so I got up and grabbed some loaves to take with me. One  is based on Dan Lepard’s barm bread, made with beer from a local pub, another is based on a light rye bread formula that was shared on Dan’s forum and a couple of rye breads from recipes that I had passed on. When we finally got to Yorkshire we ate most of the bread we had brought with us, sharing it with the Dales Dough Do on Friday night. The barm bread with soaked raisins was particularly popular, I of course love the seeded rye based on this recipe (but then I would!)

The french baguettes at the loaf are made from Jeffrey Hamelman’s poolish formula, though I read on Andy’s website that he is making some new italian style baguettes as well now, he also offers one of Mick Hartley’s seed and sourdough specials every Saturday. These are all tried and tested breads that sell well and are popular with their customers.

This is sounding like one of those reviews you read in a paper, it’s not meant to be. We had a lovely time;  the sun shone, we got to look at a bakery, admire the five deck oven and talk about proving baskets and the price of flour and how to get your scones to rise straight and not twisted. It was great fun. Go and visit the loaf if you are over that way,  that’s what I want to say – and keep talking – exchange thoughts and ideas – and everyone will get to eat better bread, whether you bake it yourself or live near an oasis of a bakery like this one.

And if you are lucky enough to have a good bakery near you, then don’t forget to support them and buy the bread that someone has been up at all hours of the night getting ready so it is fresh for you in the morning.

I’d love to hear about your favourite breads and your favourite bakeries, though I might get very jealous!