Arkatena loaf (with chickpea flour starter)

Another "Bread Matters" recipe, this one begins with a chickpea (gram) flour starter - which smells HORRIBLE!!! Again, only some of the active starter (on Day 4) is used in the production leaven (which includes some chickpea flour and is much doughy-er than a sponge). I left this production leaven in the fridge overnight. Next day that was brought to room temperature. After a few hours I kneaded flour (just white and wholemeal), water and salt together, before kneading in the production leaven. This is then treated like the other Bread Matters sourdoughs, and left under an upturned bowl for an hour before being stretched and folded.

This is where it all went wrong!!! My oven broke (electrical fault).. just wouldn't switch on at all! Disaster! What to do.....???? Well, I put the folded dough in a plastic box and put it in the freezer! I have frozen pizza dough, and naan bread dough in the past with no ill-effects, so figured it was worth a try! 2 days later, when the oven was fixed, I took the dough out and left it to come to defrost overnight. Then it was shaped and left to prove supported in a bowl lined with a flour-dusted tea towel for 4 hours.

Once baked, this was the result....

A delicious loaf! Really chewy, a hint of the sourdough starter (but tasting NOTHING like the hideous chickpea flour starter had smelt!!), good crust (as I used my conventional non-fan oven function and lots of sprayed water).... One of my favourite loaves ever.

Lots of loaves!

My contribution to this summer's family holiday...

Clockwise from l-r:

So, in turn...

Malted seeded loaf - one of my favourites from the River Cottage book.

White sourdough - used the River Cottage recipe, but this time I used proving containers. Made quite a soft loaf. Nice and open but not as chewy a crumb as the last one, so not as nice. No idea why. Not as thick a crust either, but that's due to me being forced to use the fan oven rather than the conventional setting (which is still broken :-( ).

Wheatgrem - LOVE this loaf, especially toasted. The Dan Lepard one which required minimal kneading. Gorgeous texture and taste.

Brioche - YUM! Cakey texture, rich with the egg and milk. The River Cottage recipe uses (to me) surprisingly little butter. Really lovely fresh and warm, but still nice toasted (with homemade chocolate spread) when it was a couple of days old!

On holiday I also managed to bake Dan Lepard's garlic bread, a ciabatta-style loaf (made with easy bake yeast) which is spread with whole cloves of garic (cooked in a balsamic vinegar reduction). Sweet, salty, garlicky and chewy. Really lovely... Not strictly a loaf (as I sliced the rolled dough and cooked them as rolls) but so tasty I had to include it here :-)

Spelt and rye sourdough

Really enjoyed last weeks loaf - so much so, that I thought I'd try a slight variation this week. Interested to see what the addition of rye would add to the loaf - I'm guessing that it will make it a heavier, darker loaf, but I'm hoping that it will add the flavour of rye without weighing it down too much.

So, this weeks loaf went something like this -

Production leaven - spelt starter, spelt flour, and water. Made to a soft dough. This time I placed it in the fridge overnight as the weather's been fairly warm.
'Mush' - no raisins, so I used sultanas. Soaked in boiling water overnight.
Flour/water mix - in the morning, I mixed half spelt, half rye, with the water for the dough, and left to relax for 30 minutes.

Kneaded the flour/water mix and the 'mush' until they'd formed a cohesive dough. Then I kneaded in the production leaven. Left for 1hr on a moistened worktop, under an upturned bowl. The dough was then stretched and folded, as with the other "Bread Matters" sourdoughs.

For the first time, I decided to support the loaf in a floured, tea-towel lined, bowl (in lieu of a proving basket). So the prepared dough went in seam-side up. This offered the final proof much more support and meant that the dough didn't spread out at all. Much better! Will definitely be doing this again.

Final proof took only a two hours - the combination of the wholemeal spelt and rye meant that I knew it wouldn't rise much. Used the small oven too, so minimal warming-up time. The obvious bonus being that this oven actualy works!

Great oven-spring! Tasty, slightly sweet (due to the sultana mush), with a nice texture. One minor thing - could have done with an extra 10 minutes in the oven - ever-so-slightly underdone. No matter, still a gorgeous loaf!

Spelt & Rye sourdough

Spelt sourdough (with "raisin mush")

Another "Bread Matters" recipe, this one uses a spelt starter (made up following the instructions in Andrew Whitley's book but including a tbsp of my original "Boris" - who's still chilling in the fridge!), and with the addition (to the flour, not the leaven) of 50g of raisins soaked in 50g of boiling water, which had been blended up to make a "mush".

The recipe itself was simple - make a production leaven (which I left overnight in a cool place), then knead together the flour, water, salt and raisin mush, before adding the production leaven and kneading again. Actually I added in another step by mixing the spelt flour and water and leaving for 30mins, as I love the way it makes the initial dough so much easier to handle.... So far so good. Once all the ingredients were combined and kneaded together, I followed the method used for the other sourdough loaves in Bread Matters, leaving for 1 hour (covered with a bowl on the worktop) and then stretching and folding, before leaving for the final prove. Decided to use the big oven as I wanted a good thick crust, and that's just not possible with a fan in the smaller oven (which can't be switched off)....... That was where my frustration began! NOTHING to do with my loaf but everything to do with my oven thermostat which has completely broken now... Won't heat up, or does heat up and then goes "nuclear"... This time it was all going well until the temperature dropped suddenly and irreconcilably... So it took a good 4 hours before I could bake my loaf... By which point I fear it had over-proved :-(

Actually it was fine!! Perhaps a touch over-proved, and a little "well fired" BUT it had a lovely crust and the taste was loads nicer than my previous spelt sourdough (the RC version with hemp seeds). A success! Delicious with homemade hummous and salad.. one I'll definitely be making again :-)

Fruit and nut leaven loaf

Loved the sound of this one. A 'Bread Matters' recipe - I've bought the book I liked it so much! Soaking the dried fruits and nuts and making a 'production leaven', both left overnight, meant that I could get the loaf started at 7.30am on getting up for the day.

One slight hitch was the the batteries on my scales died just before making this... So my measurements were based on guess-timates rather than accurate figures!

So it's basically a white sourdough but not very sour at all - I wonder if that's down to the production leaven stage?? - but with added prunes, figs and dates, and brazil nuts, cashew nuts and hazelnuts.YUM!!!

Fruit and nut leaven loaf



Probably not one I would want to eat every day, or even every week but gorgeous with cheese, or just toasted with butter. A favourite already!

Looked impressive when sliced!

Yummmm!!

Golspie loaf

A Dan Lepard (Handmade Loaf) recipe, using rye starter, some fresh yeast, and wholemeal flour, this was quick and easy to do - only 20 seconds of kneading!!

After an initial rise of 1hr the loaf is shaped and rolled out to be placed in a 20cm round tin (oiled and dusted with oatmeal - or in my case oat bran, as that was all I had!). Once doubled in size, or near enough, it was baked for 45mins.

This is the result....

Golspie loaf

Really like this loaf! I can taste the rye, it's not overly tangy, and the oat bran crust gives it a lovely texture.

River Cottage spelt sourdough

This weekends loaf was another River Cottage offering.... this time a spelt sourdough, made with my wheat starter, and with the addition of hemp seeds. As other R.C. sourdoughs, this one uses the sponge method - v active by morning!!

A nice loaf: fairly open texture, nutty taste, good tangy flavour. Not my favourite though - I definitely preferred the Cromarty cob or the mill loaf, rye/white/wholemeal mix.... maybe I'm just getting fussy!!! Will be interesting to try "Bread Matters" version of this loaf, which uses a spelt starter too.

Cromarty cob (from "Bread Matters")

Having had a good read of Andrew Whitley's "Bread Matters" book, I was ready to try one of his sourdoughs. Liked the sound of Cromary cob, which uses a rye starter but sticks to conventional white and wholemeal wheat flour (in a 50:50 mix).

It's an interesting technique, making what he calls a "production leaven" (which he advises to leave overnight for the wheat starters, but for just 4 hours with a more vigorous rye!). After this, the other "dough" ingredients are combined and kneaded util they show "good signs of development". Then the leaven (which is like a dough itself) is added, and the whole lot is kneaded for a few more minutes. It's a sticky dough and I had to keep wetting my hands to stop myself getting covered. Then it's advised that you leave the dough on an area of water on the worktop and cover it with an upturned bowl.

This shows the dough immediately after covering. As it developed it spread outwards considerably, and I could see bubbles under the surface as the yeast grew. I left it for 1hour. Then, with wet hands I was instructed to fold it and stretch it back on itself 4 times to "thin the gluten membrane by stretching it". This pile of dough was then rolled in wholemeal flour and left for it's final rise on a board with a rucked up, flour-covered, tea towel (in lieu of a proving basket), for 5 hours.

It felt very very soft, and was tricky to handle... so I just picked it up with both hands and carefully formed it back into more of a ball shape, before getting it onto the preheated baking tray, spraying and slashing it.

Cromarty cob

Sliced cob

I think the wettness of this dough definitely lended itself to the production of great air pockets! A lovely texture. I liked the 50:50 combination of white and wholemeal, couldn't taste the rye (only 5%, so not surpising!). Interesting to try a different technique with the folding. Could maybe try leaving it for another prove before baking to see if that added even more air.

Overall though, a lovely loaf!

Rolled oat & apple

A Dan Lepard recipe taken from The Handmade Loaf, this one combines rolled oats (soaked briefly in a small amount of boiling water) with a fairly substantial amount of peeled and grated apple (200g of apple to only 250g of flour!). The rising agent used here is white leaven and 3/4 tsp of fresh yeast.

Rolled oat and apple

Yum!!

It's a simple recipe that, again, doesn't require much kneading. I like the lightness of the white flour, but I'd love to try this loaf out with 50% wholemeal just to see how it differs. It has a v subtle apple flavour... V moreish!! Next time I'll make a double batch as it was just too small!

Seeded rye loaf

Used a tablespoon of "Boris" (who's been relegated to the fridge while we had a long weekend away!) and made up my new rye starter. It was v quick to activate, so I was able to use it after 3 days.

Recipe from "Bread Matters" - if the last loaf was "low maintenance", this loaf is "NO maintenance"! Litererally chuck the ingredients together and leave it to prove. No kneading at all. Rye is a very low gluten flour so doesn't need any kneading :-)

It didn't rise much (unsurprisingly) BUT it is a lovely loaf! Not as heavy as I'd have thought, and defineitly nicer than any 100% rye I've bought before. I loved the addition of seeds through the bread. I'd like this sliced v thinly with some smoked salmon or maybe toasted with a poached egg on top.

Wheatgerm loaf (with fresh yeast)

Another fresh yeast loaf, this one needed quite a bit of preparation. Wheatgerm toasted and wheatgrains simmered, while I prepped the water, orange juice, honey and flour. The advantage of this loaf, though, is that it needs virtually no kneading! Just 10 seconds, rest for 5 minutes, knead for 10 seconds, rest for 5 minutes, knead for 10 seconds and rest for a final 10 minutes. Then shape and leave in the tin to rise (final prove). The reason for this is that kneading and rising for extended periods will lead to the bran tearing the gluten (apparently!) - wholemeal flour plus wheatgerm doesn't give enough stretch to cope with the 'normal' breadmaking process. So I learned that wholewheat flours should be treated as if they contain less gluten, which means handling the dough less and giving it a shorter initial rise.

The photo below shows my loaf ready for it's final prove - which only took an hour (including the time to cook the wholewheat grains)...

ready for final prove

Final prove was meant to take 1.5hrs but after that time the loaf seemed to have risen v little... Hmmm... Well, again, oven-spring did the trick!!!

wheatgerm loaf

A lovely loaf! Couldn't taste the orange juice, but it was slightly sweet thanks to the honey, and had a nice dense crumb.. but definitely NOT a "brick" :-)

River Cottage rye & wholemeal sourdough

Learnt my lesson from the last time I made a RC sourdough and added a little more water. Maybe not quite enough, as it happens, but it was definitely a more open crumb than last time! More rye than Dan Lepard's mill loaf, this had 22.5% rye, 22.5% wholemeal, and 55% white. A darker mix, but still enough white to let it rise.

Here's a shot of it after kneading... nice and stretchy!

gluten stretched after kneading

Puzzled by the lack of rise on the final prove, but it made up for that with its successful oven spring. I also used the smaller of my two ovens this time - the thermostat on the big oven is well and truly broken... So it has a fan function which I can't turn off. Regardless, this loaf didn't seem to suffer for it. Maybe the crust isn't quite as thick as previous batches, but still a nice loaf.

Tasty rye & wholemeal sourdough!

No loaves but still busy!

New books in my life this last fornight include Andrew Whitley's " Bread Matters" (more of a bread "bible", it's evangelical about the homemade loaf!) and an earlier Dan Lepard book called "Baking with Passion". Watch this space....

So no loaves in the last week or so BUT that doesn't mean I've been idle... continuing to experiment with all things bread-related!

Naan - I have never made a decent naan bread. I did try once but it ended up being more like a thick bread-like pancake.. hmm... however, a couple of weekends ago I found a great recipe on BBC Good Food's website (a favourite of mine for all sorts of recipes) and gave it a go. Yum! Just made the plain ones and, although I forgot to add salt, I think with the addition of salt and maybe some crushed garlic in with the butter, they would be prefect! A definite success!

Pizza - I have made my own pizza base for years.. sometimes "authentic" white, mostly spelt, more recently spelt and chickpea flour (lovely and crispy!), but always with "quick" yeast. But the more I read about conventional yeasts (fresh, or otherwise), the more I'm convinced that sourdough is the way forward. Allowing thime for the natural yeasts to do their "thing" has got to be more natural and healthier. So, from this stand point I really want to master a sourdough pizza base - can it be done?? Can it really be as good as manufactured yeast??? So, half wholemeal spelt, half white flour, sourdough starter... and..... it worked really well! A bit "doughy" for our tastes, but I think rolled a bit thinner, minimum time for rising, and lined with baking paper and prebaked with some baking beans, this would be a great base!! Kids ate it without a grumble too, so it must have been OK!!!

Rolls - Took the R.C. malted grain and seed recipe I'd used a while back but formed into 13 rolls instead. Gorgeous!!!

Really, I may never buy another mass produced bread product ever again..........

Spelt and seed loaf

Another River Cottage loaf - this time with dried active yeast and also a couple of spoonfuls of sourdough starter, in an attempt to give it a bit of a 'lift'! The only spelt loaf I've made in the past was a bread maker 'offering' that was more use for building something than actually eating... Hmmm...

This loaf started off really well and looked great. R.C.'s Dan recommends a longer kneading time, and the use of proving baskets to support to loaf on its final rise. In the absence of such a basket I decided to use my silicon loaf tin. All going well... Then I tried to slash the loaf and, for whatever reason, this is when it all went wrong!!! The loaf was like a balloon that I stuck a pin into and just 'deflated'. Never did rise again:-( Tasty though! And definitely not as 'brick-like' as previous spelt efforts. I would make this again, but probably just stick with a conventional round loaf, and ditch the silicon tin!

White leaven loaf - 2nd time lucky!!

So this time I followed the "River Cottage" sponge method - the leaven, plus water, plus half the total flour (standing at room temperature overnight). In the morning I mixed the sponge with the other half of the flour and the salt. Needed for 15 minutes, and left to rest for an hour - repeated that 3 times. Then I shaped the dough and left it for the final prove on a floured tea towel....



final prove



So it's supposed to go in the oven after 4 hours, but I was a bit late with the school run, etc... anyway, it was more like 5 hours. Worked out fine though, and although I did forget to slash the top of the loaf, it rose well!! 10 minutes at 250degrees and 40 minutes at 200degrees....

tasty sourdough!



Ultimately, a really tasty, chewy, open crumb, sourdough. Really happy with this loaf. 

The sourdough mill loaf

So buoyed by the success of my wholemeal sourdough loaf, I thought I'd give Dan Lepard's recipes another go. Went for the "mill loaf", which uses a mix of 60% white, 30% wholemeal, and 10% rye flours. A nice mix.... Instead of Dan's method - which mixes all the ingredients together and then either gives you the choice of leaving it in the fridge overnight for a long slow initial rise, or out on the worktop for the first 10minutes - I decided to go for the River Cottage method. Daniel Stevens (R.C.'s "bread man") recommends a "sponge method", where you make a batter using the leaven, water and half the flour, and then leave it at room temperature overnight. This worked well for the wholemeal loaf.... but on reflection I think maybe the dough was a little "vigorous" for this... and then following Dan's method of short kneads and long rises meant that it was over-proved.. hmmm... not a bad loaf, in fact really tasty with a lovely flavour BUT I think I need to get it in the oven a little quicker next time. Follow one method, and stick to it - that's what todays loaf has taught me.... :-)

Mill loaf - tasty, but a bit shape-less!

Simple milk loaf.... with fresh yeast...

Dusted off Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" to try a recipe called "Simple Milk Loaf"... and it was simple! Very!

The exciting thing about this recipe, for me, is that it allowed me to use some fresh yeast (ordered off eBay - of course...!) for the first time - having bought a block of 100g and frozen the rest in 7g portions, wraped in clingfilm, leaving me just 7g to use this week.

My 7 year-old delighted in helping, and it was easy enough for her to get involved. The only thing I would say is that I don't feel the loaf got as high a rise as I was expecting it too... that may be that I didn't knead it well enough, or that I didn't use quite enough yeast... but I suspect it was due to the tin I used as Dan stipulates a smaller one than the 2lb tin I had to hand. I will definitely give this another go as it looks, and smells, AMAZING... slightly sweet (due to the Maple syrup, probably!) and rich, due to the milk... just the thing for a Sunday breakfast :-)

Simple milk loaf... yum!

SuperFast Thermapen 0-299.9°C, Red - BakeryBits - Artisan Bread Baking Equipment

SuperFast Thermapen 0-299.9°C, Red - BakeryBits - Artisan Bread Baking Equipment

So part of me feels that I should be an "intuitve" baker..... But the success of a loaf does seem to be a science (at least until I get a bit of practice in!). So this thermometer is definitely on the wish list!

Wholemeal sourdough!

So, refusing to be beaten by an Eastern European wild "man" (ie my sourdough starter by the name of Boris), I attempted my second sourdough loaf.

Using the River Cottage book - which seems MUCH more suited to the novice breadmaker (like me!!) - I followed the advice and made up a sponge mix (starter, water and flour) and left it out overnight. Funny... looks a LOT like the actual dough I made for the white leaven loaf (further suggesting to me that I went badly wrong somewhere with that one!!!!). If anything, once I'd added the rest of the flour required, it was a bit dry.. I added more water, but think now I could have added more. It didn't rise and become as "pillowy" as the instructions led me to believe it would. Anyway... this is the result....

sponge mix after spending the night left at room temp... looking good!!

Rising!!

So THAT's more like it :-)

Looks better but, on cutting it open, it is far too dense. I think this is due to the dough being too dry... needs to be much wetter to create the sort of "open crumb" texture of true sourdough. So I'm going to keep feeding "Boris" and have another go in a week or so.... the quest continues!!!

White leaven loaf.. continued....

So, I followed the instructions.... just didn't look right... but what do I know, I'm new to this and I have no idea how it works!!! Dough was VERY sticky, and seemed to just be spreading rather than rising. Anyway, I thought, just stick it in the oven!!!!!

Well, this was the outcome....

My first sourdough "pancake"!!!

Less of a bread and more of a pancake.... :-( Oh well.....

Boris, and my first natural leaven bread!

So Boris has reached Day 6 and I'm ready to bake with him. Removed the required 200g for Dan Lepard's white leaven loaf. Replenished him with the required 100g of water and 125g of strong white flour. Dan's recipes all seem very precise in terms of timings (which I can understand having read the River Cottage Book) and temperatures (which I'm having more of an issue getting my head around). I don't have a thermometer yet but when Dan specifies that water should be 20degrees C, or 16degrees C... well, what's the difference to me?!! I hope it's not crucial.. but if it wasn't why would he be making a point of it? Hmmm.....

So, I have started my first natural leaven loaf. The basic white one. First stage to be done in the fridge overnight, and I will tackle it tomorrow.

Boris - ready for baking!

White leaven dough to be left overnight.

 

Natural leaven

Boosted by the success of todays loaf (and just having managed to track down rye flour in the local supermarket!), I've decided to embark on the creation of my own natural leaven, or wild yeast. This is something that, as long as I don't "kill" it, should last me for the duration of my baking life.... no pressure then!!!

I'm using Dan Lepard's guidelines on this which, interestingly and unusually, contains raisins and natural yogurt, to add some bacteria and promote yeast growth. So, all mixed up, "Boris" (it seems only right and proper that my yeast should have a suitable Eastern European name) is now sitting in a moderately warm spot in the sun room. I'll feed him daily over the next week with a mix of strong white and rye flours. Pictures of his progress will follow....

Second loaf...

Having finished the last of the (frozen) loaves I made a week ago.. we're now craving more fresh bread! I decided to try a different combination of flours and opted for Shipton Mill "Three Malts and Sunflower" brown flour (785g) plus a small amount of wholemeal to make up the 1kg. I also added 2 handfuls of mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower and sesame). Again, using dried "fast action" yeast. One slight difference this time is that I used the two-stage mixing method, mixing flour and water together, and letting it sit for 1hr, before adding the salt and yeast. I liked this method. The dough did feel easier to "work" - as the book said it would!! Kitchen warmer than last week, I think (although the lack of a room thermometer means that this is not scientific!). Dough risen in bowl on top of the oven (oven not on), under cling film. I have purchased an oven thermometer, since last time, and found that my oven is HOT! Got it up to 270deg C for the first 10mins, but then struggled to reduce the temp - accounting for the "well-fired" crust on last weeks loaves. Despite turning the temp down to (what should have been) 140deg C, after the initial oven rise period of 10mins, the temperature in the actual oven didn't get below 200deg C. I used foil to cover the loaves (as I had done last week) for the final 30mins, but they still came out rather brown.

All things coinsidered, I am pleased with the results.. yet to try it, but it looks yum!

Malted and seeded loaf

My First Loaf!!

So I couldn't wait! Thoroughly read and "digested" (ahem...) the first chapter of The River Cottage Bread Book (by Daniel Stevens). Decided to go for it with "easy-bake" yeast (if it's good enough for Hugh F-W), and a mix of wholemeal and white flours. No oven thermometer, so just had to trust the oven. House was quite cold BUT left bowl of dough in the sun room and covered with bin bag (the black plastic does absorb heat). Heeded Daniel Stevens' advice and used a tray of boiling water in the oven to recreate a steam oven.. I think it did make the bread crusty, which I like.

First dough mix - yeast/salt added at step 1

Kneeding first dough

1st rise

Final prove

Out of the oven!!

Yum!

Was a really, really nice loaf!!!! Surprised myself with how nice it was actually, given that the only loaves I've managed to produce in the past (courtesy of the breadmaker, for at least part of the process) have been like bricks!

Success first time... now for something braver!

First stage... books.... and equipment!!

Dan Lepard's "The Handmade Loaf" and The River Cottage Bread book have been purchased....... Thought I might get going tonight with my first dough... but it turns out I need all manner of "equipement" if I'm to give this a serious go. In terms of ingredients of course I need flour (obviously!) and yeast (fresh if possible), but it also seems I need items like a proving basket, "baking stone", a "peel", a special razor thingie to cut the bread before baking (this is crucial!), a refillable spray bottle for water (also crucial!).... oh, the list seems endless!!! So, like all good hobbies, this one's going to cost some money......