White Bread with commercial yeast

Occasionally, despite enjoying the best bread baked using wild yeast, I fancy a loaf of white bread baked using commercial yeast. There are few things finer than a slice of this soft tender bread, almost hot from the oven spread with good quality unsalted butter and some home made jam; the current jam is gooseberry and ginger made a few weeks ago when gooseberries where in abundance.

I made gooseberry, gooseberry and elderflower and finally gooseberry and ginger, using glacé ginger. Each has it's merits and all have succeeded in winning me over to gooseberries.

Back to the bread, even if you decide to use commercial yeast, and for me that means easy blend yeast, the type you find in sachets that you can simply add to the other ingredients, it is possible to improve the final result greatly by simply slowing down the whole process. I make the dough last thing before going to bed and place it in an oiled polythene bag in the fridge. You need to be a little careful to position the bag so that the contents don't migrate in the fridge, because even at 5 degrees, the yeast will do it's work and the dough will rise a little.

In the morning, at some point simply take the dough out of the fridge, stretch and fold it a couple of times and put it back to keep cool. If I plan to bake around early evening, I take the dough out of the fridge early afternoon, I leave it to gradually come back to room temperature and shape it at least a couple of hours before baking. This process works well for all types of loaves, and pizza. Extending the process in this way improves not only the flavour and texture, but also the keeping qualities with virtually no extra hands on work.

To make two small loaves you will need:
600g of Strong white bread flour
1 packet of easy blend yeast
9g of salt
400 ml of cold water.

Mix all ingredients to form a soft by not sticky dough. Knead for a few minutes only before placing in a polythene bag that you have dribbled a teaspoon of oil into and squished together to line the bag with an oily film. This makes tipping the dough out easier. leave in the fridge overnight.
In the morning, tip the dough out onto a work surface and stretch & fold the dough a couple of times before returning it to the fridge.
Roughly 5 hours before needing to bake the bread, tip the dough out of the bag onto a work surface, stretch & fold a couple of times and leave covered with a tea towel to come back to room temperature. 2 hours before baking form the dough into two small loaves and leave to rise until double in size. heat the oven to 220 degrees C and bake the loaves for 25 minutes until golden, the loaves should produce a hollow sound when the base is tapped.

Miche with 20% spelt

The addition of spelt flour in this bread certainly adds flavour, I used Prior's organic white flour 

You will need:
For activating the starter,
100g of starter from the fridge
100g of Strong white bread flour, I used Prior's organic white for this batch
100g of water.

For the ferment,
All of the activated starter
200g of Strong white bread flour
200g of water

For the main dough,
All of the ferment
800g of Strong white bread flour
200g of white spelt flour
500g of water
20g of salt


Activate the starter by mixing all the ingredients together are leaving, covered until you begin to see bubbles appearing on the surface.

Take the activated starter and add the ferment ingredients, stir well and leave covered until the surface shows a healthy amount of activity See fig 1. Add all the main dough ingredients except the salt and if using an electric mixer mix on a medium speed for 3-4 minutes. Leave the dough covered for a minimum of 8 hours. At this point I go to bed.

After the bulk rising time, add the salt and mix again on a medium speed for 4-5 minutes to develop the gluten.

Leave the dough, covered, to rise for and hour. Stretch and fold the dough to further develop the gluten. Repeat the stretching and folding two more times at 1 hourly intervals.


Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces and shape into boule. Place seam side up in well floured lined banneton. Leave, covered for 2 - 3 hours until doubled in size. Tip the first loaf out onto a heated pizza stone or as I do, a hot cast iron flat griddle, slash and bake in an oven pre heated to 220 degrees C, for 35 to 40 minutes. After 15 minutes you can move the first loaf onto another shelf in order to repeat the process with the remaining loaf.

Notes:
I used only 20% white spelt flour, if I was using the Strong white flour I sometimes use I would have increased the percentage of spelt. The mix is up to you, it depends largely on the density of the finished loaf that you are happy with.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Lemon meringue pie is one of the lasting memories from my youth, in those days the meringue was thinner and the filling was often made using a packet of powder which you added  egg yolks and water ton and cooked until thickened; the lemon flavour came from a small capsule that resembled a cod liver oil capsule. There were clear instructions to keep stirring the mixture while it gently simmered until the lemon capsule had burst, releasing the essential flavour. The egg whites would then be whisked up with sugar to create the meringue, we felt very modern indeed.

These days making lemon meringue pie utilises the extra eggs I have on my hands from time to time.

You will need:

For the sweet pastry:

70g of unsalted butter, chilled
140g of plain flour
30g of sugar
1 egg yolk
pinch of salt
enough water to form a dough

For the lemon filling:

6 egg yolks and 1 whole egg
200g of sugar
The juice and peeled rind of 6 lemons
150g of butter.

For the meringue:

6 egg whites
150g of sugar


Make the pastry, place the flour, sugar, salt and chilled butter cut up into small pieces into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mix resembles small breadcrumbs. Add the egg and pulse again until it has disappeared  into the mix, at this point add only as much chilled water as possible to bring the mix together into a firm but pliable dough. If you add more water than necessary at this point the pastry will not have such a tender crisp texture, so add a little, pulse a little and add only as much as you need.

Place the pastry to rest for 15 minutes. I find the fridge too cold for this making rolling out difficult. However, after rolling out the pastry and lining a 20c cake by 4c baking tin, I put the pastry lined tin in the fridge for half and hour to firm up and dry out a little.

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees C, place a piece of parchment paper onto the pastry, and place ceramic baking beans on top of the paper. If you don't have baking beans, rice that you keep just for this purpose will do well. The aim is to weight down the pastry so that it doesn't rise during the baking process. cut the parchment paper large enough to overlap the tin so that removing the beans is made easier.
Bake the pastry in the oven for 15 minutes, take the tin out and carefully remove the parchment paper and beans and return the pastry to the oven with the heat reduced to 180 degrees for a further 10 minutes. Remove and set to one side.

Make the lemon curd filling, peel the lemons with a potato peeler (you need to avoid any of the white pith at this point) and place in a food processor with the sugar and switch the processor on for 2 minutes to grind the rind up as fine as possible. I find this method extracts the most flovour out of the rind. Place the sugar in a pan along with the juice of the lemons and bring up to a simmer or until the sugar is completely dissolved. If you find the process of grinding up the rind and sugar didn't make the rind fine enough you can sieve the dissolved sugary juice at this point. Allow the mix to cool for a few minutes while you cut up the butter, add the butter and 6 egg yolks to the mix and place back in the pan and on a medium heat, slowly whisk the mix, you will fnd the butter melts at which point it's important to avoid heating the mix too much. The aim is to heat only until the egg yolks thicken the mix, turn the heat down and do it more slowly if you're anxious. Take the thickened lemony curd off the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes, whisk in the whole egg.

When the baked pastry case has cooled for a few minutes after baking, pour the lemon mixture into the pastry case and return to the oven for 20 minutes at 150 degrees C. remove and alow to cool completely/

Make the meringue, whisk the 6 egg whites until they form soft peaks, add the sugar, I add it all at once, continue whisking for a few minutes until you have firm peaks and the sugar is completely dissolved. Meringues weep when the sugar isn't fully dissolved.

Pile the meringue onto the cooled base and bake at 150 degrees C for 20 to 25 minutes until the top is slightly golden.

Notes:

This recipe may well look like too much work (easy to understand why the packet became available all those years ago) but the effort is certainly worth it, the end result is a delicious sweet and lemony treat, a variety of textures and with the addition of pouring cream, a perfect dessert.

Bonus! the process of making the lemon filling at least up until the point where you add the extra egg, you have actually made lemon curd which can be placed in a sterilised jar and kept in the fridge to use on scones or used to sandwich a sponge cake.

The pastry will shrink a little from the side of the tin but I find it best to leave the finished lemon meringue pie in the baking tin (loose bottomed) until just prior to serving.





You can make the base complete with set lemon filling up to a day before, but add the meringue and bake only on the day it is to be served.

Double Chocolate Oat Cookies

I have been sitting watching a film I remember enjoying back in the sixties but somehow today I am distracted. The thing that I am thinking about instead of poor Thomas More's problems, is creating a new chocolate cookie from what I have in my cupboard, to have with coffee when Sylvia comes over tomorrow morning. This is the result, reasonably high in fibre and I do know someone who would claim they qualify as one of his five a day, the sultanas!

To make around 30 cookies you will need:

125g of oats
100g of SR flour
175g of muscovado sugar
125g of melted unsalted butter
75g of dark chocolate
50g of chocolate chips
50g of golden sultanas
50g of chopped pecan nuts
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence 
1 medium egg
large pinch of salt

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Place the oats, flour and chocolate in a blender and blend for 30 seconds, take off the lid and redistribute the mix before blending for another 30 seconds, the aim is to grind the oats up a little. Place the contents of the blender in a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix to form a soft sticky dough. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Take dessertspoons of the mix and place well apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 14 minutes, cool on a cooling rack.

 Notes:
You can vary these by using hazelnuts instead of pecans, white chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate and using different dried fruit, cherries would work well, you could also leave out the dried fruit and put in chopped crystalised ginger.

Adding the melted butter while it is still hot to the mix melts the chocolate that has been ground up, delaying adding the chocolate chips allows you to have whole chocolate chips in the finished cookie.

These would make excellent ice cream sandwiches, simply sandwich two together with a good quality vanilla ice cream.

Roasted flour bread

While baking my last batch of baking I placed a baking tray in the oven containing 200g of Prior's flour. I left it in at 220 degrees C for roughly 10 minutes, checking frequently to make sure the flour didn't become too dark. All flours are going to vary in water content so each will need to be watched as the colour turns from a creamy white to a milky coffee colour. You may find you need to take the tray out and stir the flour a little to ensure even baking. The end result is flour which you can sieve and keep to use in baking a batch of roasted flour bread.

You will need:
For activating the starter,
100g of starter from the fridge
100g of Strong white bread flour, I used Prior's organic white for this batch
100g of water.

For the ferment,
All of the activated starter
200g of Strong white bread flour
200g of water

For the main dough,
All of the ferment
800g of Strong white bread flour
200g of roasted white bread flour
450g of water
20g of salt


Activate the starter by mixing all the ingredients together are leaving, covered until you begin to see bubbles appearing on the surface.

Take the activated starter and add the ferment ingredients, stir well and leave covered until the surface shows a healthy amount of activity See fig 1. Add all the main dough ingredients except the salt and if using an electric mixer mix on a medium speed for 3-4 minutes. Leave the dough covered for a minimum of 8 hours. At this point I go to bed.

After the bulk rising time, add the salt and mix again on a medium speed for 4-5 minutes to develop the gluten.

Leave the dough, covered, to rise for and hour. Stretch and fold the dough to further develop the gluten. Repeat the stretching and folding two more times at 1 hourly intervals.


Divide and shape the dough into 3 oval loaves and place seam side up on a well floured linen cloth to rise for 2-3 hours until nearly doubled in size.

Slash the loaves and bake in a hot oven 220 degrees C for 30 - 35 minutes. I transfer my loaves onto a pre-heated cast iron flat griddle and bake them one at a time, moving the loaf onto a different shelf in the oven after 15 minutes in order to re-use the griddle, a pizza stone will serve the same purpose.

 Notes:
The choice of shape for your finsihed loaf is up to you of course,  I lean towards battard or oval more than boules because I have more even sized slices when it comes to eating them.

It's entirely possible to take care not to disturb the large holes formed during the rising, stretching and folding process, simply avoid knocking the dough back too much. Whereas I too think the large holes are attractive and often a sign that a natural ferment has been used, when it comes to buttering toast, large holes are just that bit too impractical and so I knead my dough a little more when it comes to shaping.

Red Pepper Hummus with a Spicy Topper

Humus is always a good stand by, take the time to make a topper for it and you transform the lowly humus to something that delivers far more complexity.

I have a pressure cooker and I must admit these days it only gets taken out to cook pulses that have been re hydrated by soaking. While I have a large jar of dried chickpeas in my cupboard I like to think I could feed myself for a while with little else. Tinned chickpeas are always an alternative but soaking chickpeas overnight then cooking them until tender is far cheaper. It's also true that in order to make good felafel you need to use soaked but uncooked chickpeas and not the tinned ones that are already cooked.












You will need:

For the Humus

350g of chickpeas (dry weight) soaked in a litre of water overnight
1 tablespoon of Tahini
The juice of one lemon
200g of roasted red pepper, if you can find the Polish ones in a jar they are actually cheaper than buying fresh peppers and going through the process of roasting, de-seeding and peeling them.
1 large clove of garlic grated
2 tablespoons of good olive oil
seasoning

For the Spicy Topper

100g of the soaked & cooked chickpeas
1 small onion finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 chilli finely chopped
1 red pepper finely chopped (seeds removed)
1 tablespoon of tomato pureé
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of sweet paprika
1 teaspoon of powdered sumac
1 teaspoon of sherry vinegar
seasoning


To make the humus:

Cook the soaked chickpeas until tender, this takes 10 minutes in a pressure cooker and about 40 minutes on a low simmer. The chickpeas do need to be tender so do cook them until you have achieved this. If you are using tinned chickpeas, drain and put 100g to one side to use in the topper. Reserve 100ml of the cooking water.

Place all but 100g of the cooked and cooled chickpeas in a food processor along with the tahini, lemon juice,  roasted red pepper, seasoning and garlic, process until you achieve a smooth paste. You may need to add a little of the cooking water if it appears too dry and thick, but remember the addition of the olive oil will loosen up the humus significantly so add sparingly. Finally drizzle in the olive oil through the funnel of the food processor while the motor is still running. Set to one side.

To make the topper:

Fry the seeds in the olive oil on a gentle heat until then begin to pop. Add the finely chopped onion, red pepper and chilli  and continue to cook on a gentle heat for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, the sumac, paprika and tomato pureé, cook for a further 2 minutes. Add the chickpeas, sherry vinegar and the reserved cooking water and simmer for 5 minutes. season to taste.

Notes:
You can vary how chilli hot you make the topper.
The sumac does add a delicious, subtle sour note to the finished dish, so it's worth finding, Asian supermarkets often have it.

Prior's Flour Bread

I popped along to Foster's Mill at Swaffham Prior the other day to pick up some of their excellent organic white bread flour. The sails were being driven around by the wind that had picked up and inside, where the miller, Jonathan was busy weighing out flour, the milling mechanism was moaning and rattling. It may not be on my doorstep, being 33 miles from my home but I am certainly fortunate to be able to find and use such high quality organic flour, freshly milled.

My first batch of bread with this new flour was very satisfactory, I shall make the next batch a little less wet and I shall develop the gluten a little more, but this is just tweaking, the flavour is outstanding.

For activating the starter
100g of starter from the fridge
100g of Prior's white bread flour
100g of water


For the ferment
All the activated starter
50g of Strong whole wheat flour
150g of Prior's white bread flour
200g of water

For the final dough
All the ferment
1,000g of Strong white flour
500g of water
20g of salt

Activating the starter; take 100g of starter from the fridge, add 100g of Prior's white bread flour and 100g of water, stir well and leave covered for 2 hours.

When the surface is showing some activity, a few bubbles, add the remaining ferment ingredients and mix well to introduce some air. Leave covered for at least 4 to 6 hours, this will depend almost entirely on temperature.

When the ferment is showing good signs of activity see fig 1 add all of the flour and water for the main dough, omit the salt at this stage and leave covered to rise for 8 hours.

After the bulk rising period, add the salt and knead well for 5-10 minutes to develop the gluten.

Leave the dough, covered, to rise for and hour. Stretch and fold the dough to further develop the gluten. Repeat the stretching and folding two more times at 1 hourly intervals.

Divide and shape the dough into 3 battard loaves and place seam side up on a well floured linen cloth to rise for 2-3 hours until nearly doubled in size.

Slash the loaves and bake in a hot oven 220 degrees C for 30 - 35 minutes. I transfer my loaves onto a pre-heated cast iron flat griddle and bake them one at a time, moving the loaf onto a different shelf in the oven after 15 minutes in order to re-use the griddle, a pizza stone will serve the same purpose.

Notes:
This bread has the creamy beige colour you find in bread baked using unbleached white flour; it most resembles the pain l'ancienne I found when visiting Hedd's childhood friend Camille in Marseille. Pain l'ancienne is her father Phillipe's favourite bread and for me discovering it, helped to fuel my drive to bake this type of bread for myself.

The amounts described above are the ones I used for baking this batch of bread but as I mentioned I will reduce the water in the final dough to 450g for the next batch.

I understand Bakery Bits is now selling Prior's flour.

Spicy Peanut Soup

I met up with Hedd and Leo a couple of years ago in Amsterdam while they were on a trip to Europe. While we were walking around the city we came across a small shop selling soup and my choice was the Spicy Peanut Soup. On arriving home I worked on recreating the soup. here is the recipe, tweaked over a two year period.

Soup after cooking for an hour and a half.

This soup feeds 6 and keeps perfectly well in the fridge for 3 days.

You will need:

3 cups of chopped vegetables (dicing is good but don't give yourself a hard time) I have in my time used runner beans, French beans, carrots, courgettes, potatoes, peppers, butternut squash, sweetcorn, peas and onions, whatever combination you have to hand, ideally at least 3, onions being 1.
4 cloves of garlic
1 thumb size piece of ginger
2 or 3 chillies (this is entirely to taste including whether or not you add the seeds)
1 tablespoon of tomato pureé
3 large tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter
1 tin of coconut milk
The juice of 3 limes
1 teaspoon of palm sugar (granulated sugar will also work)
1 teaspoon of black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1 teaspoon of curry powder (I never use curry powder for curries but it's useful in soups)
2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste.
Chopped coriander to sprinkle on top when serving

Using a large saucepan, fry the mustard and cumin seeds in the oil for a couple of minutes on a gentle heat. Add the onions and chopped chilli and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes until the onions have become translucent but not coloured, add the tomato pureé and cook for another couple of minutes before adding the remaining chopped vegetables. cook over a low heat stirring occasionally. Place the peanut butter, garlic, ginger, lime juice and palm sugar in a blender and add 2 litres of water, Blend for a minute. Add the contents of the blender to the sweated vegetables along with the tin of coconut milk. Cook the soup on a low heat for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally, season to taste.

Soup before cooking for an hour and a half.

Serve with a sprinkling of chopped coriander.



Notes:

Whenever possible I substitute Marigold Swiss Vegetable Boullion Powder for salt, it has a 17% salt content but packs so much flavour that I end up using less salt in my diet.

This soup can easily be adjusted to fit your own taste, not only with vegetables that you might prefer but also just how much sweet & sour and chilli heat you like.

 You can also enhance the sweet & sour aspect by adding a tablespoon of chopped pineapple or mango to each serving.