Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

[PanBiker]

Sally was rummaging in one of our kitchen cupboards and found the tray in the photo. Forgotten we had it! It makes six small loaves so I made these.



Standard hand baking mix using 500g strong flour and about 100g of mixed seeds chucked in before mixing and kneading. Easy to freeze down and are the equivalent of around three slices of regular sized bread each.

[Marilyn]

You will have Stanley drooling...

I’ve just been looking through my recipes for a “German Apple Cake” recipe. House guests coming for 2 days and I’m desperate for something to offer them that will stick to their ribs. ( these two eat such a lot and have bottomless pits for stomachs).

[Stanley]

You're right Maz. I am not doing too badly with my bread craving. Just the occasional pack of 4 Caramelised Onion Ciabatta rolls.

[PanBiker]

Finally, our Jacks girlfriend Jemma found some strong flour so she bought us a 1.5K bag. I set to this afternoon and am in the process of making a Milk Loaf mixing. Instead of making one large 2lb loaf, I will make it in the tray shown in my previous post. That way I can reciprocate for some of Jemma's excellent cakes that she makes and let them have a couple of the small loaves to try. I had a read of a couple of my bread books and am thinking of starting off a Biga. This will take a few days to mature so thinking of some sourdough variant breads for next week.

[Stanley]

BBC report on Farming Today about strong bread flour. Plenty available in 16kg bags on line.

[PanBiker]

Not much good to me, far too much for home baking. Most would spoil before I worked my way through it. 16kg equates to about 35 - 2lb loaves or 210 of the small cobs I make for the freezer.

[Big Kev]

Not much good to me, far too much for home baking. Most would spoil before I worked my way through it. 16kg equates to about 35 - 2lb loaves or 210 of the small cobs I make for the freezer.

I saw, over in Facebook land, that Choudrey's are selling 'loose' from big bags. Not sure what types they have but might be worth a look.

[PanBiker]

Yes, I picked up on that as well Kev. I will ask what they have next time I go for veg.

My small milk loaves turned out very well, a much lighter crumb than the normal dough mix using water. I'm going to have a go at a Basil and Coriander sourdough bread when I have matured my starter. I will produce enough starter to pass a portion on to Jemma. She has never tried sourdough cakes or bread. She looked slightly amazed that it would take 9 or 10 days to produce a cake mix but is looking forward to having a go.

[Big Kev]

Not much good to me, far too much for home baking. Most would spoil before I worked my way through it. 16kg equates to about 35 - 2lb loaves or 210 of the small cobs I make for the freezer.

I saw, over in Facebook land, that Choudrey's are selling 'loose' from big bags. Not sure what types they have but might be worth a look.

Not sure if I mentioned it before but, apparently, chapati flour should be good for 'standard' bread.

[PanBiker]

Chapati flour is milled a lot finer than normal strong wheat flour which is coarser to give structure and has more gluten than other types of flour. It's generally dearer as well. I'll have a read in my bread recipe books to see if there are any mixes using it or mention of it's usage.

[PanBiker]

I have been maturing my Biga, (starter) for the best part of a week. I'm following Paul Holywood's method which is basically equal quantities (250g) of strong flour and tepid water, then add 6 or 7 chopped green grapes to provide the sugar and acidic content to set off the fermentation process. All the lot is in a large sealed Kilner jar and left to do it's thing for a few days. Once the fermentation has started you discard half the mixture and feed the rest with more flour (100g) and the same amount of water or enough to keep the same consistency and to keep the process alive. The starter is like a batter and bubbles to show that it is still active.

I made start on a sourdough loaf today which is nothing more than a portion of starter (250g), strong flour (375g), salt (7g) and tepid water (125 - 175ml) you use just enough to bind all the ingredients into a dough. This is turned out onto a lightly oiled surface and kneaded for about 15 mins until the outside of the dough ball has developed a smooth film. It is then ready for it's first rise, back into a lightly oiled bowl for the first rise. This will take about 5 hours and is where I have got to so far in the process. My effort is maturing up in the loft work room as its a nice warm environment to develop the rise.

I will post again when it has hopefully doubled in size. It's a slow rise as there is no other yeast involved other than the natural content of the developed starter. The starter has been refreshed with it's feed to keep it alive.

[plaques]

I've always been doubtful about using 'natural' yeasts, it always seems a pot luck approach. Why not use a good wine yeast in place of the grapes. At least you can guarantee consistency.

[PanBiker]

My sourdough cake, (featured in another thread) came out OK and was 9 - 10 days in the making. This is my first attempt at sourdough bread. I will pass a portion of the starter on to Jemma as she fancies having a go at the cake. It should be OK for both, we'll see anyway.

It will either come out OK or flat and as hard as a brick, must go and check on the rise.....

[Stanley]

The most fascinating thing to me about cheese-making was the way the starter was nurtured. Colin Barritt told me that some of the cultures were over a century old.....
I remember he once got into a spot of bother with his starter and an expert came and inspected and told him he was being too clean! He advised being slightly less particular and that cured it. Bit like rearing kids!

[PanBiker]

I've always been doubtful about using 'natural' yeasts, it always seems a pot luck approach. Why not use a good wine yeast in place of the grapes. At least you can guarantee consistency.

No need in this case, this is the dough after the second slow overnight rise, pretty active I would say. The bowl was dusted with a 50/50 mixture of flour and semolina and placed in a roomy plastic bag.



Next job was to turn the dough out onto baking paper. It falls back a bit and you liberally dust with the remaining flour / semolina mix. The dough is then deep scored to open up the crust. Oven has been pre-heating to 220c, (gas 7) and has a tray set on the bottom shelf of the oven with a jug of water tipped in, this creates a degree of steam in the oven cavity and helps to produce a crisp crust.



The loaf is baked in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes, then the temperature is reduced to 200c, (gas 6) for a further 15 or 20 minutes until the loaf is overall golden brown at which point it should pass the "hollow when tapped" test which it did. Here is the end result cooling on the rack.



This last image is my ongoing starter, still alive and active in it's Kilner jar.



I will pass 250g of this on to Jemma and then feed it again for another loaf, I fancy having a go at a Basil and Coriander variant bread, or maybe make a sourdough fruit cake.

[Tripps]

Quite by coincidence and just pre virus flour panic - I bought a Kenwood breadmaker via Gumtree from a very nice lady in Duxford. It's as new and cost me just £10. I just had an itch to make my own pizza dough which I did regularly a long time ago.

First attempt was a success and I got two tasty one person pizzas. Then on Friday I tried again - total failure, the flour didn't even mix with the liquid. I quickly remembered you must put the liquid in first, and sprinkle the flour over it.

Tried again yesterday - result still 'sub optimal'. Came out a sort of wet sticky mess. However I put it on a baking sheet and in the oven at some guessed temperature, and for a suitable guessed length of time.
Result - Actually (and miraculously ) quite nice. . .

bread.jpeg

[PanBiker]

I always use my bread maker to mix the pizza dough as well P. Golden rule with the machines though is liquids first followed by the dry stuff. You have to be very precise with the measurements as well particularly the liquids. Mine has a seed and nut mixer as a separate receptacle as they tend to add these after the first rise. When I hand bake seeded breads the whole lot goes in at once, it always seems to work.

Seems like you either had too much liquid or not enough flour. Did you use strong flour?

[Tripps]

Yes - Tesco strong white. You're probably right, and I'll check most carefully next time.

Just did an an online shop at Morrisons, and on my young lad's recommendation got a 10 kg bag of chapatti flour. Elephant Atta medium.. Nothing easier to make than a chapatti.

[Stanley]

From what I remember of my bread machine days I got into trouble when I stopped paying attention to proper weighing of quantities.

[Tripps]

I made some chapatti dough from ordinary strong bread flour. Easy and delicious - couldn't get them to be much bigger than a beer mat though.
Had couple with butter and marmalade on - lovely.

[PanBiker]

I made a batch of six milk loaves the other day which used up the remainder of my current stock of strong flour. I had fed my sourdough starter which also uses strong flour so I divided it and passed 250g or so on to Jemma. That was Saturday last so she has posted today that the cake she is planning is on day four of it's journey and is bubbling away nicely.

Having no more strong flour to keep my starter going I have decided to start a sourdough cake with mine as well. This uses plain flour of which I have new stock in the cupboard. As the starter has been on the go for two weeks now and is still active I have started the process at day four and given it it's first feed of flour, sugar and milk. That will put me on the same schedule as Jemma so we will be able to compare results. Day nine is division day for the mix before finalising the cake mixture so I can replenish my starter to have continuation for future projects. The division is into four so If anyone reasonably local, (Plaques maybe) wants a batch of starter just ask. I can socially distance deliver if required.

[plaques]

Thank you for the offer Ian but I must decline. At he moment Mrs P is in full production on muffins, short bread and jam cakes not to mention various meringue concoctions. Fortunately they are in big demand from the kids next door but it still leaves too much rich food shoved in my direction.

[PanBiker]

No problem P, a case of "cake overload" by the sound of it.

[Stanley]

"too much rich food shoved in my direction"
You poor lad.....

[PanBiker]

My sourdough cake mix is bubbling away nicely on the island in the kitchen, a feed of sugar, milk and flour has worked wonders. It's so active I think I will need to move it to a bigger bowl. Will do that today as it's a stirring only day. I will have a lot of mixture when it comes to division day as I started with a lot more than the 250ml required. I am thinking of sourdough scones to follow the cake. I suppose they will come out like a supercharged version of scones made with milk that has turned.