Our Bread Making Routine (With Quick Yeast)

I'm often asked about how we find the time to make bread. Truth is, bread takes time, but not much active time. So with a little planning, it's possible - we make bread twice a week on average, and I sometimes buy a nice loaf on Sundays. I haven't yet cracked sourdough (will try again once the weather warms up - I think our kitchen is too cold to get a starter going right now), so this is the easy stuff - flour, water, quick yeast and salt, sometimes olive oil:

Basic Bread Recipe:

500g of organic, wholegrain flour. My favourites to mix and match are plain old Strong Wholemeal Bread Flour, Rye, Malthouse and Spelt. I also keep Strong White on hand to mix in sometimes, if I feel like a fluffier loaf (especially with rye, which can be a little heavy or gummy, or with something like buckwheat, which doesn't contain gluten), but I never make plain white bread. I've specified organic - the pesticide levels are actually higher in whole grain products because they aren't stripped of the outer husks, so it's really worth springing for. Also, we're saving money by making bread, right? So let's make something nice. 

1 teaspoon quick dried yeast. Make sure it's reasonably fresh - it might not work well if it's been in your cupboard for yonks.

1 teaspoon fine sea salt. 

325 mls warm water. 

About a tablespoon of oil, I use olive or rapeseed. Optional.

The timetable goes roughly like this: mix and knead for 10 minutes, proof for an hour, light knead and shape for 5 minutes, proof for half an hour in the loaf tin, bake at 200C for half an hour. So, as you can see, it takes a bare minimum of two hours, but with only 15 minutes active. Now, let's say it's a Monday. Maybe we are planning to go to a playgroup or something. Before we set off, we'll make our dough. This isn't a chore, it's an activity! It's messy play! We sing about 'Dough a Deer' and enjoy ourselves.

I won't lie, having a stand mixer helps. I let the Kitchenaid do the first knead. So again, I'm not actively working - I'm usually tidying up, actually, and F is usually playing with her small portion of dough. Then, depending on our timetable and the weather, I either set the dough to rise on my heat mat or at room temperature. Our kitchen is really cold, so I keep a heat mat for my Kombucha, and it also comes in handy for bread. A warmer temperature will mean that the dough doubles in size faster. SO, if I know that playgroup is an hour and half, I might leave the dough in a cooler spot to deliberately slow the process down - as long as it's not so cold as to halt the rise completely. Kneading and shaping by hand takes very little time, and again, you leave it alone for a while (you can even refrigerate it at this point to use later on - we often do for pizza dough). We might then start to make and eat our lunch - so we are home anyway - and put the oven on to pre-heat. Then I can bake the bread in between lunch and nap, which will cool down sufficiently to be ready to eat as a post-nap snack!

Alternatively, if we're home in the afternoon, we can have fresh bread in time for dinner just by popping into the kitchen every so often. I might start the dough before her nap, but really there's time after as well. 

Tips!:

*The times are a guideline. Really, you want to knead until the gluten is sufficiently developed (it will be nice and springy), and proof until it doubles. You can manipulate your timetable with the temperature - just don't push it too far. 

*Dough freezes. Yup. I especially like to freeze pizza dough (same recipe as above, just use '00' flour instead of bread flour. I really like a 50% spelt, 50% '00' pizza dough - and I pretend it's authentic because spelt was eaten by the Romans!), which also makes a decent flatbread. Just flatten a smallish ball of dough, brush with oil and throw on the grill pan. Little fresh flatbreads with hummus and vegetables makes a nice dinner if you ask me. 

*If you're vegan, you might already have vital wheat gluten in the house - so if you find that your whole grain bread isn't as chewy or springy as you'd like, you can add a tablespoon. I don't use it anymore, but it's a common bread additive and worth experimenting with. You'll also get a good feel for the gluten content of your bread by manipulating it deliberately.  

*Flour seems to vary not just by grain, but brand as well. I'd rather add more flour than more water. In a stand mixer, the dough should form a big stretchy ball that's slapping the sides of the bowl. By hand, again, you're looking for stretchy - not just sticky. 

*For a crustier crust, you need steam in the oven. A little roasting tin with some hot water works a treat, but make sure to put it in BEFORE the bread. It works it's magic in the first few minutes of baking.  

Eat a slice or two (or five) while it's still warm, if at all possible.

But get in there quick!

Project Sourdough: Bumps in the Road, Or Why Home Fermenting is a Bitch-Goddess

Damn you, home fermenting, damn you!!! I've been having a disappointing series of kitchen fails, mostly to do with Sourdough, and now Kombucha. My Sourdough falls flat, and my very first batch of 'buch MOLDED because my kitchen is too cold. Shall I recap? This might be sweary, I'll try to keep it clean.

So, Sourdough:
I've continued to try various bread recipes using my starter, all turning out way too dense. Another malthouse turned out like pumpernickel. I was so disappointed with the rise on a San Francisco-style loaf that I resorted to adding some quick yeast AFTER the second rise and luckily got enough of an oven spring to salvage that em-effer (above). Still, disappointing. Tried the following fixes:

Kept the starter at room temperature for a few days before using.
Changed the jar when the above fix resulted in a tiny bit of mold on the edge of the jar.
Fed more regularly.
Proofed at room temperature.
Checked the dough regularly to suss out the tolerance.
Tried different oven temps, both experimenting and to-the-letter recipe following.

Of course, the answer is obvious. I should get my hands on a known good starter to narrow down the list of potential problems. If I know my starter works, then I must be going wrong somewhere with dough tolerance, or temperature. Have I mentioned that our kitchen is cold? That can't help. What's frustrating though, is that the starter smells good! It smells right! It smells sour and complex, and the dough does actually get some big, sexy air bubbles. What's wrong with it??? 

So my plan is to get some good starter, from where I don't know yet, and try again, all while continuing to maintain my lovely rye starter. I'm also going to get my hands on a proving basket (is it proving, or proofing? I see both on t'internet. Any bread nerds out there?) and do this right. And I do know that there's no turning back - I've made some bread with quick yeast since, and it just doesn't have the flavour or the crust.

And Kombucha! What the hell!! I thought, since sourdough is proving to be a troublesome, erm, Berkshire Hunt, I'll do an easy ferment for the summer. I bought a Scoby (and named it Scobias), and set up what was to be a continuous brew. I happen to like Kombucha, and I get a kick out of making something that's normally expensive for next to nothing. Sounds great! No, mold. MOLD. 

 

So excited! So naive!

 

Whaaaa???
 

The Internet seems to think that Kombucha is actually difficult to screw-up, unless you're a screw-up, like me. The company I bought the Scoby from, Happy Kombucha, have actually been really helpful in diagnosing our problem, so I am going to try again. I'll have to brew upstairs somewhere, near the goddamn thermostat if I have to, and I will probably wait a few batches before attempting a continous set-up again. Then I shall report back! Hopefully with better results! So today I bought a bottle of commercial Kombucha just to bum myself out further about what I WON'T be making this week. 

Now, if you need me, I'll be over here crying into my guacamole. Not really, I'll be eating it.

Don't forget to vote for us though! If you want to, of course...

Project Sourdough: Pain De Campagne Semi-Fail

We baked our first loaf of sourdough today, that was 3 days in the making, and it was, um, ok. Not a raging success, not a total failure. I can't say I'm disappointed exactly, as I didn't expect to be turning out perfect artisan loaves on day one - here's what happened, and where I think I'm going wrong:

Project Sourdough: Care and Feeding

First things first, I've got to apologise for the photo quality here. A sourdough starter is not a photogenic creature. But it's a creature! Nearly a week old, my little colony is alive and well. I've found an excellent resource in this website, Sourdough Home, so I've been taking my advice from there among other places.

Project Sourdough: Making a Starter

 

Sourdough. Human beings have been making it for millennia. How hard can it be, right? Famous last words? Picked up a tiny, expensive but exquisite loaf of quinoa sourdough from Gail's this morning, and thought, enough is enough. I gotta learn how to make this.

Tantrums and Teal Paint

So, she just had her first tantrum. If I've ever used that word before, I was wrong and I take it back. It started so innocently; I let her help me make bread.

We're watching the dough mix, making some lunch (vegetarian sausages and spaghetti with nooch, not terribly exciting but it's normally a sure-thing). She's having snacks, chatting - it's fun! At some point I guess it dawned on her that we weren't having the bread.
'Bwead?'
'Sorry, darling, the bread isn't ready yet. In an hour we knead it again, and then we bake it, and THEN we eat it.'
'Bwead??'
'No, sweetie. Sausages. Yum!'
Her voice is cracking already - 'BWEAD???'

A half an hour of inconsolable writhing later, she fell asleep, sobbing in my arms. For most of it, she emphatically did not want to be comforted, so I just neutrally waited it out until she needed me. Eventually she came over for a hug and passed out. I know they haven't yet learned how to process their emotions, and that this is totally normal, but holy moly. That'll wake you up in the morning.

Also, I'm soliciting opinions on my new-old table. I bought it for £30 (score!) and it badly needs refinishing, so I'm going to paint the legs and sand and oil the top a darker colour. I also want to replace the cup handles, since I probably can't get the paint off of the original ones. The only thing I'm not sure of is the colour of the paint for the legs - I've bought a lovely teal (Dulux Proud Peacock), but it looks quite dark in photos:

I can't decide! I feel like everything in our house is white, which is fine, but a colour would be nice, and I feel like we can be bold when it was so inexpensive to begin with. It's only paint! What say you, friends?

Toddlers

 

Sometimes I notice some small detail, like a pile of books, and it hits home how much my life has changed. No Anais Nin, no Dawkins - here we have Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes.

 

Today is my husband's birthday, and its a big one. I think he's feeling it a little more than usual this year. I don't see why - he should be proud of everything he's accomplished. I'm proud, anyway.

 

Yesterday's white bread, bad lighting:

It was a success. Next stop, sourdough!

An exceptionally lazy lunch of canned soup and grilled (Violife) cheese. I was feeling a little conflicted about serving my kid something so borderline unhealthy, but she didn't eat it anyway. The tantrum began as we left playgroup, and continued until she fell asleep. They are so cute, it's easy to forget that toddlers can be assholes challenging.

Bread and More Bread

But first, a little hat modelling:

 

I got a Kitchenaid mixer for Christmas - extravagant, I know, but I've wanted one for ages. I used to say that I was like Wayne, you know, with the guitar? Oh yes, it will be mine. And now I'm like Kevin Spacey in American Beauty - the mixer I've always wanted and now I have it, I rule! Enough with the 90's film trivia? So far, it is the difference between making bread twice a year, and twice a week. It's the difference between thinking about making seitan, and making seitan. It's mashed potatoes on a weeknight. It's also deep teal and deeply sexy:

This is actually my first plain white loaf - I tend to use whole-grain flours, but I wanted to try my hand at the fluffy stuff. I also want to make Violife grilled cheese sandwiches, and for authenticity you need white bread. 

Someone trying to sneak a peek (yes, there's always a baby on my hip while I do this stuff):

I almost forgot! On Sunday I went with some of my in-laws to the most fabulous Persian store and vegetarian cafe in Peckham, called Persepolis. The owner (and cookbook writer) makes all the food in the tiniest little kitchen, and it's wonderful. Vegan options are clearly (proudly!) marked - I had Vegan Moussaka. In the shop I bought some tahini and some Turkish delight for my husband (which is vegan, made traditionally. Bears no resemblance to the Cadbury's junk), and my mother-in-law got some barberries and giant flat breads. This was very restrained of us, we could have bought up the whole shop!

Definitely worth a visit if you're in London!

A Sweater is Just a Blanket You Can Wear

Oh my. The baby has a cold, the husband has food poisoning (WE HOPE), and the mom has to stay up and help everyone. Well, the baby anyway, the husband knows how to throw up. I was meaning for my first post on the new blog to be an introduction to our small but sweet life, but, to be honest, it isn't feeling particularly sweet today! But honesty is the best policy, and sometimes motherhood is hard. In fact, the only way I could coax myself out of bed this morning was by telling myself "a sweater is really just a blanket you can wear". Oof.

Getting through it with hemp lattes and homemade bread.

That is "Gingerbread" Porridge. Normally we just have grated apple or pear to sweeten our porridge, but we were out. So I used blackstrap molasses, dried ginger, cinnamon and a little brown rice syrup. It smelled wonderful, and I hope that it cut the through Frieda's congestion! She ate tons, at any rate. On top, we both had chia seeds and a little hemp milk, and I had walnuts as well. 

Homemade Rye bread. I'm a beginner.

My angel normally:

Today it's all snot and tears and lots and lots of yelling...