I posted this in respose to quip from Paddyscake on th boiled fruitcake thread but know I will forget where I put it so am creating a new blog

adapted from a Terence Stamp wheat, dairy and sugar free recipe and can be made using a single dried fruit eg apricots, plums or sultanas.

My wheat version (note dairy option) here as follows:

I've ben practising this recipe for a while. I syill can't quite manage the same crumbly texture as the famous McVitie brand but getting closer ...

They aren't that pretty to look at but taste good

For approx 2 dozen biscuits:

10 oz wholemeal flour

6 oz fine oatmeal

2 tsp salt (nec for the sweet/savoury balance but you could use less)

2 tsp baking powder

6 oz butter/marg

What to do on a wet weekend.

With the remainder of the household in the garage or asleep time to use a coolish oven to full potential so ... tried-and-tested recipes yield a batch of digestive biscuits; a boiled fruitcake; a 14" pepperoni pizza and a pudding cake with freshly picked tayberries and time to try something new.

Interesting article in Winter 07 newsletter from San Francisco Baking Institute on using whole grain flours in bread formulas. Discusses types of whole grain flours, effects on gluten development and suggests adjustments for water content and mixing times. The link is http://www.sfbi.com/pdfs/SFBINewsWI07.pdf

I grind my own flour and regularly make whole wheat breads at about 85-90% hydration to get an open crumb - not as open as with white flour, of course, but holey enough for me.

Anyway, I bought 6 pounds of spelt berries a couple of weeks ago and started up a spelt sourdough starter. I made a round loaf of 50-50 whole wheat / whole spelt at 85% hydration. Lovely crumb, lovely flavor. Big ole pancake of a loaf. It spread out something awful in the oven.

I baked quite a bit this weekend, but, though it may seem I did nothing but bake, I really didn't. The nice thing about baking, especially now that I'm using the stretch and fold technique instead of traditional kneading, is that there's actually very little hands-on time required, except for bagels -- I'm sure it would work, but I don't want them to ferment that long before popping them in the fridge. So I still sometimes need to knead.

Saturday morning, we had sourdough whole wheat bagels.

Sourdough Whole Grain Sandwich Loaf

Helas, that appeared to be the situation Saturday afternoon.

I'd thought I'd learned something about properly dusting a very wet loaf before proofing. And, in fact, I did learn something. Unfortunately, I subsequently learned something else: how to shape a wet loaf properly, thanks to MountainDog.